Now I have never been a friend of “man’s best friend”; dogs and I just don’t seem to get on very well. I tried, I mean as a child we always had a dog or two and I was more than obliged to try and befriend them, but it just never happened. I guess some people just don’t get along with dogs very well. But try as I might there was always something in my subconscious that made me feel as if I really didn’t like dogs.

I think it is the idea of dog ownership and aquisition that has always rubbed me so wrong. I have come to equate dog ownership to that of adoption. I know they are our loyal compainions and they are our so called “best friends” but when I look at owner and their dogs I become sick.

Most often we take these young pups, right fromm their litter, ripped from their mothers care and nourishment and for a fee we place them in our homes. We train them to “behave” in a certain manner and they are expected to oblige, because we provide for them, we feed them, we give them a place to live. But what was so bad about living with the creature that gave them birth, what is right about placing these pups in an environment so alien to them, without any sort support of recognizable presence. To force these young creatures to adapt and conform to their master seems somewhat wrong.

Now I know there are people out there who will take my equation to human adoption and dog ownership as a bit harsh. But this is how it feels to me. We fill a need by going out into market and finding a body to occupy the empty space within us. But scared puppies long for the love and nurture from their mother, these wrinkled little masses shiver in fear of being somewhere that is so unknown. And when they don’t accept their new “masters” and act out of accordance to our standards we put them in shelters, or worse we put them down. We think these “naughty” dogs are the bad picks of the litter and wish that we had chosen a different one from the breeder and maybe we should have done a bit more homework as opposed to picking based on the cute cuddly face that sat before us.

I guess it is just no wonder adoption still exists in this manner when as a society we perform a similar level of it with dogs.

note: this post is an evolving line of thought.