It's A Dog's Life
Created | Updated Jun 14, 2003
I’ve been wondering about a lot of things lately. I look at our economy, our war on terrorism, the Israeli/ Palestinian Conflict, not to mention Catholic priests or Presidential syntax, and I can’t help wondering what’s going on in this world. Everything seems so crazy and nothing makes sense. Nothings what it’s supposed to be.
But if it’s bad for me and humans in general, think of how it must be for our dogs.
This, by the way, is strictly a dog piece. Birds, snakes, iguanas, gerbils and all the other animals human beings keep as pets, ( yes, and cats too...especially cats....) do not have a part in this. The reason is that dogs are the only ones who really care about the stuff I’m talking about here. Cats, whatever affection you may feel for them in spite of the fact that they’re nothing more than arrogant, stand-offish little runts of the feline world who excrete in their litter boxes then jump up on your kitchen table and track fecal matter all over it, just don’t have the emotional where with all to deal with the kind of issues I raise here. Don’t get me wrong, I love the abrasive tongued little killers.... by the way, did you see the movie Cats and Dogs? Great, wasn’t it? But back to the topic at hand.
Take elevators. You walk into one, push the button, the door closes and it takes you up to your floor. Simple. But try to explain this concept to your dog. It can’t be done. All’s they know is that you lead them into this little box, the door closes and the room shakes a bit for a few seconds and wham! The door opens and you’re someplace else completely, like Dr. Who. That’s got to really play with your head.
Or the car. Not just riding in it; dogs seem to handle that concept very well. You know, the whole stick your head out the window with an insane expression on your face and let the wind carry your tongue flapping back into your ear thing. That’s alright. But it’s when we stop the car and go into the store to run an errand. I always come back out and there’s my dog sitting in the driver's seat, wondering why the gosh darn poopy (h2g2 moderators please take note of self moderation) thing isn’t going anywhere. She knows enough to sit in the driver's seat, she’s figured out that that’s a must, but...what next? Try teaching a dog about internal combustion engines, or worse, diesel, and all’s you get is an attention span of like, fifteen seconds and then ‘where’s the ball?’. Diagrams are useless in this situation, so don’t even bother to try.
That’s bad enough, but think about when we go to work. We just leave and we don’t take them with us. Our dogs must wonder, ‘Now, why would they do that?’ We get into our cars without even sticking our heads out the window and just leave . It makes no sense. Then, hours later, we come back. No explanations, nothing. Did we get lost? Who knows? Humph.
And computers. It took me close to six weeks or intensive schooling to get my two Shelties to even grasp the concept of the binary system of computation ( and they still can’t get the Web), but they’ll never understand how I can come home at night and just stare at the ‘Box’ as they call it, for hours on end. To them that’s not doing something important like for instance petting them or playing.
I realize that it’s an inter-species thing. I still can’t figure out why rolling around in poop ( H2G2 moderators please take note again) is so much fun; the few times I’ve tried it have been dismal failures, just ask my wife. On the other hand the head out the car window thing is starting to grow on me and the female Sheltie is beginning to really shine when it comes to building Dog Bone Consumption Spreadsheets, but mostly we come from two different points of view entirely. And perhaps that’s what makes the relationship so good.
So the next time life seems to be going to the dogs, think about the dogs instead of life for a change. It’s not easy trying to go through life where nothing makes sense, but if you keep your paws on the ground, your ear up,your tail in the air and remember to stash a biscuit or two away for the hard times, you should be alright.
