Canine Underground Needs More Voices
Where the dog came from is an interesting question. By “dog” I mean the species canis familiaris. Where the dog is headed is another matter.
Some students of the dog say our primitive ancestors tamed the wolf in a time when domestic help was hard to find. First they trained him as a four-legged butler to tidy up bones, entrails and whatnot left around the cave. After that, this theory goes, the dog was groomed for the hunt.
Bah, says Raymond Coppinger, an animal behaviorist at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass. Dogs domesticated themselves, he suggests, by coming around for a free handout.
Both of these theories strike me as reductionist in nature, positing little more than a marriage of convenience between the dog and people. And that’s where I think the theories fall down. Humanity will exploit anything that moves, and most of what doesn’t, but no other animal exhibits the dog’s extreme charity toward our own kind. Further, countless species - dump bears, ship-tailing seagulls, raccoons in the farmer’s corn - evince liberal Democratic tendencies in their appreciation of the free lunch. None, however, has ever displayed a jot of willingness to fetch a slipper.
No, there’s more to what passes between people and dogs than science has the language to explain. In trying to understand it, you might as well bow to mystery and save your breath.
What is extremely interesting - to me anyway, but I’m easily entertained - is the extent to which dogs mirror society. Let the country go in for face lifts and anatomical augmentation of various types - cosmetic surgery in the dog show ring won’t lag far behind. Let a nation grow querulous, baring its teeth and bumper stickers in defending its right to bare arms, dog bite statistics are sure to rise. The dog has been part of the human experiment in civilization from the beginning, and from certain trends I think the dog’s destiny can be predicted to be within a block or two of our own. For instance, during the decade of the ‘80s scientists recorded an explosion of autoimmune disease in both people and dogs (cats, too, but who cares?). Nobody yet knows why, but it’s clear all three species are being stalked by a common villain.
I find myself pondering this question of origins and destinies for a reason. After much reflection, I’ve decided that the time has come for me to give “The Canine Underground” a rest. The decision surprises me, because I love contemplating dogs and people and writing about them. But in recent weeks I’ve started to sound like a broken record to myself, and that’s a sound no writer can tolerate.
If you’ve been following this column over the past year, you know that its basic purposes have been to help the average person find a good dog to live with and to help both critters enjoy the experience. Its main points have been: 1) There is a health crisis now affecting the nation’s dogs; 2) Good dogs come from a marriage of good values between dog breeders and dog buyers. The crisis facing dogs and dog lovers, then, is a crisis of values.
By way of wrapping up - I’ll do more next Sunday in my swan song - I’d like to point out that there are plenty of hopeful signs on the horizon. There’s no shortage of trouble, too, but that’s life.
The good news is: Scientific developments now make it possible to improve canine health lickity split - if dog owners want to. Some of America’s most respected veterinary researchers and practitioners - George Padgett, Joe Templeton, Don Patterson, Jean Dodds, Dawn Davidson, Paul Poulos, to name a few - vigorously agree that in five or 10 years the epidemic of canine genetic disease could be conquered by enough concerned dog owners.
But here’s the rub: Dogs are big business - $14 billion a year by some estimates. That’s 14 billion reasons for those who benefit from this windfall to preserve the status quo - and a powerful reminder to those of us in the canine underground that our many voices will be necessary to call back the old-fashioned healthy, happy family dog.
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