By staff writer Nathan DeGraaf
August 22, 2007
Jake: You can’t fix it like that.
Ray: There’s more than one way to skin a cat.
Jake: Maybe, but there’s only one right way.
Ray: Dude, that is fucked up.
Jake: Oh come on. Like you give a shit about cats.
I’ve never been to a dog fight. I was kind of surprised to find that out about myself. Recent events in the news have made me think about dog fighting a lot more than I normally would. And well, as I thought about dog fighting, I realized that I had never been to a dog fight. I was at a cock fight outside of Tijuana once. I didn’t really enjoy it, but I did find it strangely interesting and not all that alarming because, well, I eat chicken. And so I really found myself having a hard time caring about the death of a few chickens.
(Side note: One of the cock’s owners cried when his rooster died. I just don’t see how you could breed something to fight and then cry when it dies, but I think that contradiction of character does say a lot about men. I have no interest in learning what that is, though.)
Now, as I got to thinking about dogs, and how much I like them, and how much I don’t like people who hate them, I came to realize that Jules from Pulp Fiction was right: personality does go a long way. I mean, you can’t even call a dog filthy even though he eats his own feces. Because a dog has personality. Now if you, whoever you are, ate your own feces, I would call you filthy. That’s how much personality dogs have. And that’s why everyone’s so pissed.
“Most of us think that people who would breed dogs for fighting are just plain fucked in the head.”
Leonard Little, a linebacker for the St. Louis Rams, once got drunk, drove and killed a woman. He missed one season. They say Vick’ll be lucky to get a one season suspension. And nobody, not one person, died.
That’s how much people like dogs.
They have Prozac for dogs, shrinks for dogs, outfits for dogs and breath mints for dogs. If any of you out there think that your dog needs any of those items, you are either a total douche or your dog has the nastiest breath this side of the Mississippi. People who love their dogs find a lot of ways, stupid and twisted or otherwise, to care for their dogs.
We whip horses (and by we, I mean those of us who’ve ever had to whip a horse) to make them go faster, we ride bulls (again, not me per se, but you get the drift), we behead and devour all kinds of animals for food and nourishment and some of us even punt cats for fun (probably not me). But we revere dogs.
No animal in America gets a better life than a well cared for dog. In fact, I think that if you’re lucky in this life, you either come back as a smoking hot rich chick or a well cared for dog. Unless of course, reincarnation doesn’t exist.
And, because we care so much about the little quadrupeds, we react with anger when dogs are bred to fight each other. We don’t like it. We think it’s mean. Most of us cannot see why anyone would do it. Most of us think that people who would breed dogs for fighting are just plain fucked in the head. But of course, most of us are predisposed to like dogs.
Take me for example. I hate PETA. I think they’re a bunch of whiny pansies who have way too much time on their hands. But when they jumped all over this dog fighting thing, I got their backs.
But then I got to thinking, maybe there are a lot of people out there who don’t like dogs. Maybe it’s a societal perception of dog loving that is causing those who don’t appreciate the livelihoods of dogs to suffer unfairly. Maybe no one should get to say which animals we are allowed to brutally kill. Maybe, just maybe, our collective perception overrates this crime.
And then I started thinking about all the dogs in my life and how much I loved them. And then I realized that societal perceptions can suck a lemon.
Dogs, for whatever reason, deserve better.
It’s just one of those things we know to be true.
Like Cheetos.