Dog Day Wednesday

Wednesday was a good dog day. Walked Duke in the balmly, breezy Spring evening while being serenaded by birdsong. The narcissis are still in bloom, the Dogwoods are just showing their salmon petals while the apple and cherry blossoms trees are dropping their glorious pink and white blooms. Met two new potential play date pals for Duke, Precious, a tri-color female Jack and Lola, a taffy Pit Bull/Lab mix. Both girls made a big fuss over Duke, Precious in particular who nuzzled her breed mate in appreciation. Matter of fact, she appreciated him so much she sat down and cried when we left. Duke, who prefers human contact to canine, flattened his ears and gave her a deep, intense stare.

Later that evening I caught the PBS special "Dogs that changed the world." Fascinating not just for the great dog footage, but for the historical bent on the canine/human relationship. Premise being for 15,000 years (!) dogs have served men. As hunters, as protectors, as herders. But in the past century, the Victorians dramatically changed that paradigm. They turned dogs into pampered playthings, altering the purpose of dog from assistant to child, friend, even a partner. As a result of this shift, we are now experiencing a crisis. 5 millions dogs are banished to animal shelters every year, and not just due to over population or over breeding. This is due to the fact that humans procure a dog and are unable to handle the animal. They don't behave like a child or a lover or a pal. They actually want to do things. Take my fave breed - the Jack Russell. This little guy was breeded to be small, ferocious and powerful. They are natural born rat killers and although we didn't get Duke to kill rats on our plantation, he still hunts anything small that moves. Socks, birds, squirrels, and yes mice. This behavior is hard-wired. Not only in him, but in all dogs. Their original reason to live has not been breeded out of them. So you have the Collie type dogs herding small kids or causing a ruckus when there's no work to do. You have the retriever/labs picking up any old item and returning it to their master. 100 years of not allowing dogs to be dogs and they fight back, unfortunately to their detriment. Humanity has forgotten the purpose of the canine.

But hope still exists. We might not have sheep to herd or rats to eliminate but we do have new needs that can utilize the extraordinary skills of our domestic buddies. Dogs are being trained to detect cancer in humans. They can detect diabetes and even the decrease of Insulin which can trigger a seizure. In China dogs are being trained to raise an alarm when they detect earthquakes. Can you imagine? A dog on the floors on San Francisco buildings to alert to seismic activity? All fantastic and rightly so for as we enter this new phase of history with man and dog, it only makes sense that dogs would ascend to a higher role, just as man hopes to do so.