# Dogs (humour intended)



## Changeling (Nov 28, 2006)

Feel free to comment fellow humans.


*Dogs (The myth and the reality: a postman’s perspective)*

              I used to like dogs.  I used to think they were intelligent, affectionate animals with a multitude of uses in society.  Of course, a few years working in the post and about ten minutes rational thought obliterates this urban myth about our canine creations.  

              You see, as with everything, it’s just a matter of looking at thing for how they really are instead of subscribing to some fantasy we want to believe.  E.g. Lassie, Greyfriars Bobby, and the toilet roll adverts – and how they all leave out the rolling in excrement and dragging their smelly asses across the carpet.

              So let’s dispel a few myths shall we.  First, that dogs are intelligent animals.  Wolves yes, sheepdogs yes, although sheepdogs like Collies and Alsations are particularly sly and aggressive breeds as my ankles and hands will testify to.  

   What kind of intelligent animal, when feeling threatened draws needless attention to itself, its home and its family by barking its dumb head off when passer by, four times its height and weight strolls by without even glancing at it?  If you were sitting by a window and you seen a 12 foot grizzly, if you were an intelligent person would you step outside yell at them to fuck off before proceeding to bite its ankle.  I doubt it, because it stands to reason, that if your master would also be a grizzly bear, and could flatten you with a single kick.   

  Compare this to the genuine intelligence of cats whereby they simply stay out of the way.  Or when they have established though experience from multiple close encounters, you are probably not a threat and easy to outrun.   In such cases, they might meow and ask you to open the door for them.  This is self preservation (basic instinct) and opportunist logic (intelligence).

  In the 10 to 20 years of a human life (reckoned to be 50-100 of a dogs), why do dogs never ever make the obvious connection that the postman who comes almost every day of it, never entering, never threatening, never harming anyone in the pack, why do they insist on barking every single day?  What threat does a birthday card pose to the household?  Even when the family greets the postman with real friendship, they still snarl and snap at the trusted human.

  Another myth is that dogs are affectionate.  Let’s clarify one thing, a dogs tongue is no more showing genuine signs of affection when you meet it than is a politicians when it is lapping at the anus of society.  A dog does not show love, it shows submission, or aggression or disinterest.  And the disinterested dog is the most honest of these, and is usually more prone to aggression than it is to submission.  A dog doesn’t like you, it sucks up to you.  How can you instantly love someone you don’t know?  It is sucking your ass, it is afraid, it wants you to feed it, to keep it warm because it knows it is a useless animal in itself.  In that sense it is intelligent, in that knows it has no real reason to exist other than spreading saliva and looking stupid (or cute, to dog lovers)



  These myths of affection and intelligence blend to form the next lie, that of the dogs undying loyalty.  For when a dog after months of barking at the supposed threat of the postman, and is exposed to him in front of the owner it is trying to “protect”, when it is released it does not protect, but rather whines like a baby and shows undying love and loyalty to the stranger it perceives as a danger to its owner.  If the postman were then to kill the owner, the dog would still be licking at the hands of its master’s killer.  

  The last myth is that they save lives.  Yes, I admit dogs have, on very rare occasions, _helped_ people _survive_.  But this is like saying heroin is responsible for great books, or songs.  Sure, it might be an _influence_.  But for every Lewis Carroll there are a million junkies robbing old Grannies on the street.  And who is to say there is no great music or literature without the use of hard drugs.

    The truth is dogs kill people every year (I don’t know how many).  The truth is, if they didn’t save you they’d soon be eating your rotting corpse afterwards.  And for each of these cases there are thousands more dogs biting children’s eyes out of their sockets, mauling babies and snapping my bloody fingers and ankles every day.  Not convinced?  Ask any doctor at an A and E department.  And I haven’t met a postman who hasn’t been bitten yet.  There are hundreds of dog attacks every week, and that’s just the ones that get registered.

  So, now we have dispelled a few untruths about these beats what can we conclude?  First, that they are overwhelmingly stupid.  Second that they are aggressive and have killed thousands of times more people than they have saved.  And third that they are spineless emotional sell outs that have no real purpose in existence other than bolstering emotional weakness and social inadequacies of people who cannot handle the earned (and thus deserved) love of humans.  Or even Cats for that matter.

              There, I fell better now.


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## Flexbile Garphite (Nov 30, 2006)

That was interesting, I'm not really a dog lover myself. I disagree with this though:

"In that sense it is intelligent, in that knows it has no real reason to exist other than spreading saliva and looking stupid (or cute, to dog lovers)"

I think dogs are too stupid to even realize that about themselves.


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## MrTamborineMan (Nov 30, 2006)

Stylistically, it is decently crafted.  My only real criticism is really more of a personal pet peeve:  I cannot stand it when essays of any sort use the second person.  I don't know why, I just don't like it.  

It was a funny rant, though.  I'm a dog-owner, and I love my dog, but I must admit that he is one of the stupidest creatures alive.  I can also understand why a postman would have particular gripes with them.  When the postman comes up our street, my dog goes ballistic.  He'll start running back and fourth and biting at our doorknob, and he howls his head off.


While I don't mind profanity when it fits with the tone of the work, the few uses that you do put in don't really work with the rest of the words; which seem to be in accordance with the Pratchett-esque style of wit.

For the most part, a funny and enjoyable article.  My only real suggestion would be to keep the tone consistent.


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