Dogs
A Cursory Contemplation on Our Canine Companions
Legend has it that when the time came to choose best friends, girls chose diamonds and man chose dogs. The arrangement seems to have worked out pretty well. Men go around tearing up the earth in search of diamonds for their prospective wives, and dogs go around tearing up flowerbeds, newspapers, and socks on behalf of their best pals.
How did such a pair, humans and dogs, ever become so close? We could hardly be more different from another creature, except for the octopus. There are the obvious differences: dogs have four legs, humans have two; dogs have a tail, humans have adopted cellphones as a replacement for the missing, waggable appendage; dogs tread the earth horizontal to its surface, while humans walk perpendicular to it. Mathematically speaking, that’s ninety degrees of difference right there.
Some differences though are less obvious, and even come disguised as similarities. Both humans and dogs go by names; names which we scarcely ever choose on our own. I’m sure you’ve noticed that some names belong exclusively to dogs, and we dare not borrow from that pool: Fido, Tiger, Spot, Dot, and Lassie for instance. Human names though, are somehow open game for dogs: Peter, Lucy, Joe, Hamilton, and Tucker for instance are all dogs that I’ve met. Some have gone on to claim our titles as names, Hunter and Preacher. And some are even…
