We Have A Dog

We have a dog, or to be more precise, a four-legged, fur-covered food processor (food goes in one end and out the other).

Several considerations have prompted me to reexamine its purported reputation as mans’ best friend. Having a dog, like everything else, has become more complicated since the first canine showed up at a cave looking for a handout. Take veterinary care, for instance. Our pets are entitled to a more sophisticated level of health care than existed in the entire world at the turn of the century. Then there are other modern innovations for dogs, such as training devices like electronic dog shock collars (currently not available for children). The difference is apparent even in something so trivial as dog food. From bones and table scraps to a modern day fare of a myriad of meat-by-products blended in a carbohydrate paste designed by a team of Nobel prize-winning nutritional dieticians (which strongly resemble reformulated table scraps). To illustrate the extreme that the consumer public has attained to, one cat food boasts that it protects a cat's urinary tract health. So far I am unable to get concerned about a cat's urinary tract health although it appears that many cat owners must be. You may have noticed that there is as yet no counterpart claim made to dog owners which leads me to believe that they are not as totally self absorbed as compared to pet owners of the feline persuasion. Surely this paranoia is the climax of Madison Avenue's cavalcade of the preposterous and the paltry and deserves a berth right up there with “ring-around-the-collar” and “the heartbreak of psoriasis.”

Perhaps what perplexes me most is why this slobbering beast occupies such an exalted plateau. Anyone who has ever observed a dog sleeping or laying around most of the day has surely wondered at the expression, "working like a dog". The irony of this analogy is only eclipsed by, "sleeping like a baby". What has the canine done to merit such undeserved esteem other than drool excessively and wag its tail with an insipid look on its face.

Rather than possess any attributes of a redeeming value, the notorious mutt does have an entourage of annoying vices of which I will now enumerate. Any list would be sure to include barking all night, chewing on footwear and furnishings, digging holes in the yard and redistributing the contents of trash bags. Most distressing is the animal's unsanitary toilet habits (the furry beast is constantly manufacturing doggie-doo and indiscriminately placing it around the yard). This self-appointed washer-of-tires and waterer-of-fire hydrants is notorious for one other flagrant vice, they chase cats, which may explain why cats are prone to urinary tract disorders in the first place.