You know, seeing dogs working has always made me a little sad. Yes, I know they were originally domesticated to be useful (unlike cats, who were inadvertently domesticated through a form of worship and happened to be useful as pest control), but it still depresses me to see them doing actual labor in return for food and/or love.
I think it started the first time a dog wandered onto our property in South Hill, VA. My parents own 80 acres of wooded land, and we were camping there one week-end when a hunting dog walked up to our fire and greeted us with the desperate happiness of hunger. Now, the local redneck population likes to engage in a late-night sport known as "coon hunting". Now, perhaps they are trying to alleviate some of their more racist tendencies by hunting raccoons at night, or maybe they just get all liquored up and this is the first dumb idea that pops into their little heads. Either way, it involves chasing some poor raccoon in the middle of the night through other peoples' property without permission, inevitably waking someone up with the baying of their hounds. Of course, they aren't actually going to eat the damn raccoon (or possum). Who the hell wants to eat that? They're just going to kill it. But dogs sometimes get confused by the utter stupidity and the dark, and they get lost.
So, being the dutiful idiots that we are, we looked at the tag on the dog's collar and called his owner. The first thing his owner asked was, "You didn't feed him, didja? ‘Cause he isn't supposed to eat anything until tonight." Whatever. We'd bought some dog food for him because he might have eaten us if given half a chance. Then this guy showed up with his truck and the small metal box that this poor dog had to ride in. It had ventilation holes, I think. With much cursing at the dog (who was quite a nice dog; rather an old soppy, in fact), he loaded the dog in the truck and drove off.
Hunting dogs need rigorous training, I know. However, I really don't see a point in treating them like they're machines instead of animals. I kept wishing we hadn't called that dog's owner.
Lately, I've been saddened by a particular seeing-eye dog. Now, I have nothing against the blind (fuck visually-impaired; if they don't already know they're fucking blind, I sincerely doubt that hearing it from me will change that), but I really think that some of these dogs are being forced to do things that cause them mental distress. That's wrong. The seeing-eye dog is a nice golden retriever whose blind person takes the Yellow Line subway every day. I have no problem with this, except that the dog is obviously very frightened of riding on the train. She shakes, people. She doesn't shake any other time except for when she's on the goddamn train and it's moving. Her eyes dart about, panick-stricken, but her training makes her stay on the train with her blind person instead of fucking bolting. I feel bad for this dog. I think this dog should have been given to a blind person that doesn't go on a subway. I believe that this dog's quality of life is being compromised so that the blind person can take the fucking subway every day. The dog doesn't have a fucking choice.
And this makes me sad. I know these animals are performing necessary functions, but sometimes I think that more thought could be given to the situations they're put in.
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Dirk and I could really use a new T.V. set, so if you aren't already a member of StartSampling.com go here to sign up, and please put skatterkat in the ‘referred by' box. It's free, and you get samples of really cool stuff! If you e-mail me and tell me you did so, I'll try to work out a way of sending some frog erasers your way.
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