8/30/08 - dogs

I had so much pleasure with those two dogs for ten years. It's not just that I had to think about them all the time, but I spent so much time with them walking nearly every day, often more than once, and often for really long walks. Now I am sad because that is done, never to be repeated. The only place it exists is in my memory and my memory is not good. But, come on, this is always the way. The end is always bad. Whatever memories I can access should be only good. I think they should be a comfort and not just make me cry, the way they do right now. Maybe when China comes back or it becomes absolute that she is not coming back, I will be able finally to have the memories be good.

Dogs exist only at our whim, advertently or inadvertently. Even when a dog is wanted and loved and taken care of, it spends a lot of time just waiting around. Of course, it is the nature of an adult dog to be resting a lot of the time, so that works out for people. It just strikes me now as being so self centered to have a creature on hold, probably at least 95% of the time, so that whenever we want it, it is ready to do whatever we feel like doing. You might say it works out fine for the dogs that have homes, but, if we didn't create dogs, there wouldn't be dogs needing good situations and a huge backlog of dogs that do not have good situations. It is all our doing for our own entertainment, to have created an animal that does not produce anything and is entirely dependent. Now I think that the argument that pets are good for people is a pretty sad argument. The fact that it is put that way proves that these creatures are created just because we have a deficiency. We should be able to meet our emotional needs within our own species. Keeping animals that do a job and meet a physical human need in return for being taken care of is the only thing that makes sense to me. Wanting something furry and warm that never gets mad and is always happy to see you is an understandable desire, but to fulfill a human desire at the expense of another species seems wrong to me.

Not only do we expect dogs to be on hold until we feel like petting them or walking them, we also expect and demand that they do not indulge in the behaviors that are normal for a dog. A dog is a bad dog if he jumps up, urinates all over, eats cat poop, rolls in stinky stuff, wants to sniff every dog and post he sees, humps things that aren't female dogs, steals food - really just every essential bit of dogginess is Bad. A good dog lies around until a person feels like paying attention to it, exhibits a modicum of polite excitement when presented with a treat or the prospect of a walk, doesn't sniff and pee, doesn't pull against the leash - in fact, behaves like a warm, animated stuffed toy.

I would like to see China again. I would like China to hug me, the way she does. My desire to see her is really only for myself. Poor me.