Ok, so it’s true that dogs never blare the stereo, borrow money, steal cars, demand the latest fashions, or require college tuition. But two can play this illogical game. More things dogs never do:

* Dogs never cry at funerals
* Never repair cars
* Never design cars
* Never buy cars
* Never pay taxes
* Never vote
* Never dress themselves
* Never make dinner
* Never pass college entrance exams
* Never realize when they’ve been neutered
* Never pick up their poop (except when eating it)
* Never create music
* Never create art
* Never create ANYTHING
* Never win Nobel Prizes
* Never read
* Never write thank you notes
* Never donate to charity
* Never recognize their reflection in a mirror
* Never realize they are owned
* Never ponder the meaning of life
* Never innovate
* Never hire people
* Never write checks
* Never pray
* Never laugh at your jokes.

It doesn’t take dogs long to become feral. Those strong enough to survive without owners quickly revert to default mode, roaming in packs, scavenging, and breeding. In the six months since the March 11 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, hundreds of former pet dogs are running loose in the no-entry zone around Fukushima, producing litters that are
even more feral than the original dogs. Officials worry the dogs will spread diseases to people. It just goes to show how artificial a pet dog is, especially a purebred. There are around 400 dog breeds in the world, every one of them maintained by selective breeding. These breeds would vanish after a single litter if left to their own devices. After several generations, there would be no recognizable dog breeds at all, the mutts would resemble typical “village dogs”: curs with yellowish fur and a black muzzle, or splotchy colored short-legged dogs. If left alone long enough, evolution turns them homogenous, such as the dingos in Australia. The dingo is certainly not the sort of dog most people would want to dress in sailor outfits or pamper with facials and gourmet cakes.

Some feral dogs are aggressive, forming menacing packs, while others are benign scavengers, with garbage dumps as their “natural habitat”. If all dogs were “default dogs” or “village dogs” it’s doubtful they’d be popular pets, let alone regarded as fur-kids worthy of expensive medical care and such. yet these canines are much more of a REAL dog than say, a golden retriever is. When most people think of a “dog”, they think of a Platonic image, a popular purebred (or first generation mixed breed) fetching the paper and sleeping by the hearth. But this is a facade.

The National Enquirer has an article about a haven for stray dogs in a small town in Brazil. These dogs are disgusting curs, as ugly as you can imagine, and the sanctuary they now inhabit is an eye sore, with swayback village dogs barking from within numerous shoddy dog houses. The roughly 2,000 dogs consume 14 tons of dog food a month, and $14,000 in donation funds, including money from the goverment! I cannot think of a bigger waste of resources than this.

I’m sick of the slams against kids by dog lovers. You’ve likely seen their sarcastic jabs and warped logic in the form of bumper stickers and forwarded jokes. “Dogs are better than kids because dogs don’t talk back. Or borrow money. Or require college tution. Or play the stereo loud.” Their dogs are also smarter than your honor student. Several mainstream mail order catalogs offer pro-dog, anti-child (or anti-people) T-shirts: “My dog makes me happy. You, not so much.”, “My
favorite child has fur and four legs.” “The more people I meet, the more I like my dog.” Dogs are much more likely to be compared to children than are other types of pets, so naturally dogs will be the focus of my backlash. Now, I don’t have children myself, but I will defend them against dogs and their besotted fans every time. Thus:

1. Kids are the future of your country. Dogs are not.
2. Traditions and values can be passed down to kids.
3. Kids say “I love you” for real, unlike the farcical mutt vocalizations dog owners mistake for actual speech.
4. Kids can laugh at your jokes.
5. Kids grow up to become productive members of society; dogs grow up to be the same butt-scooting, turd-eating, mindless barking scavenger animal they always were.
6. Kids don’t regard the yard as a pooping zone.
7. Kids don’t mistake fire hydrants for trees.
8 Kids don’t bark at the mail carrier.
9. Kids can care for you in your elderlyyears.
10. Kids are our genetic legacy.
11.Kids have boundless imaginations.
12. You can play chess with kids.
13. Kids/people have the most complex brain in the known universe.
14. Kids go to college as students, dogs go as laboratory specimens.
15. WE WERE ALL KIDS ONCE!

As for dogs not doing the following annoying things, the money borrowing, the loud music playing, the back talking, well guess what? Dogs can’t fathom money at all. Dogs don’t know what a stereo IS. Dogs can’t talk, let alone question authority. To give dogs credit for not doing things they can’t even think about in the first place is junk logic at its worst. What about dogs being happier to see you than your spouse or children are? That’s nothing but mindless pack instinct. If you need a fawning groveling domesticated pack animal (selectively bred to exhibit these behaviors) in order to boost your esteem, something is wrong. Dogs are the path of least resistance. Children challenge us. Challenge is a GOOD thing.
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An e-mail friend who knows I hate dogs nonetheless included dogs in a report of sad personal events that have happened recently. He mentioned the deaths and funerals of several family members and old friends, and “to top it off, a friend put their old sick dog to sleep.” I replied with condolences regarding the deceased people, but added that his friend’s dogs were too insignificant to have
mentioned. Did I do the right thing? Would you all have kept quiet?

Bear with me, I’m not used to the format yet. Regarding the Dog Whisperer’s (did he steal this term from the Horse Whisperer?) advice to not humanize dogs, he’s guilty of it himself. He approves of dressing dogs up in stupid outfits, and he has referred to dog owners as the animal’s “mom” and “dad” on his show.