'Bark' in the good old days
I've had some time on my hands, so I was doing some 'historical research' about the life of dogs in the past.
According to one popular academic journal of the time, 'The Beano', back in the 1970s dogs used to bite postmen and be given bones. Times really have changed and I can't work out if we are now more enlightened or just over-protective. For one thing, postmen - you humans now call them 'postal workers' so as to be less gender-specific - never get chased or bitten by us dogs. That's despite those twee little signs people put on their front doors that say 'Beware of the Dog'. It seems like that used to mean 'Beware that the dog doesn't bite you' whereas these days it probably means 'Please be aware that we have a dog and you knocking on the door might trigger his anxiety'. If I bark at the postman when he knocks, it's not because I'm anxious, it's because I want to chase him and bite his legs.
Did you notice I said 'postman' and not 'postal worker'? That's because I AM being gender-specific, because our postal worker is a man and if he was a woman, then I wouldn't bite her legs. I'm a bit old-fashioned and chivalrous in that respect.
Then there's this thing about dogs liking bones. I don't even know what bones are. No one gives me bones. So I had to do some further research. Everything in popular culture suggests that dogs love bones, so why aren't I given any? Now I have found out what shape they are, I realise that I have been tricked into thinking I was being given a bone, when all along it was just a bone-shaped biscuit. That's a dirty trick to play on a dog. That's like giving a human a steak-shaped slab of cooked fungus (which I know happens).
I have tried to find out why you humans have stopped throwing chicken legs or leftover joints of lamb under the table for us to gnaw on after your Sunday roast and I have concluded that it all boils down to fear. Fear of us turning out to be allergic to bones. Or bone intolerant. Or choking on splinters of bone. Or becoming obese from too much sugar in bones. Or developing ADHD. Or some debilitating condition from artificial chemicals or genetically modified shit that the animal whose bone it was has ingested from its own food.
But maybe I shouldn't be so critical of the over-protectiveness of this generation of dog-owners. I also found out from my historical research that dogs were often abused in the old days, by not being allowed to sleep in their owners' beds, never being taken to the grooming parlour and being made to go for walks without a fashionable, glittery, LED-light embossed collar and girdle (or 'dog bra' as my human mummy calls it). Not sure I would swap all those necessities in life for a bone, so it's swings and roundabouts really.
According to one popular academic journal of the time, 'The Beano', back in the 1970s dogs used to bite postmen and be given bones. Times really have changed and I can't work out if we are now more enlightened or just over-protective. For one thing, postmen - you humans now call them 'postal workers' so as to be less gender-specific - never get chased or bitten by us dogs. That's despite those twee little signs people put on their front doors that say 'Beware of the Dog'. It seems like that used to mean 'Beware that the dog doesn't bite you' whereas these days it probably means 'Please be aware that we have a dog and you knocking on the door might trigger his anxiety'. If I bark at the postman when he knocks, it's not because I'm anxious, it's because I want to chase him and bite his legs.
Did you notice I said 'postman' and not 'postal worker'? That's because I AM being gender-specific, because our postal worker is a man and if he was a woman, then I wouldn't bite her legs. I'm a bit old-fashioned and chivalrous in that respect.
Then there's this thing about dogs liking bones. I don't even know what bones are. No one gives me bones. So I had to do some further research. Everything in popular culture suggests that dogs love bones, so why aren't I given any? Now I have found out what shape they are, I realise that I have been tricked into thinking I was being given a bone, when all along it was just a bone-shaped biscuit. That's a dirty trick to play on a dog. That's like giving a human a steak-shaped slab of cooked fungus (which I know happens).
I have tried to find out why you humans have stopped throwing chicken legs or leftover joints of lamb under the table for us to gnaw on after your Sunday roast and I have concluded that it all boils down to fear. Fear of us turning out to be allergic to bones. Or bone intolerant. Or choking on splinters of bone. Or becoming obese from too much sugar in bones. Or developing ADHD. Or some debilitating condition from artificial chemicals or genetically modified shit that the animal whose bone it was has ingested from its own food.
But maybe I shouldn't be so critical of the over-protectiveness of this generation of dog-owners. I also found out from my historical research that dogs were often abused in the old days, by not being allowed to sleep in their owners' beds, never being taken to the grooming parlour and being made to go for walks without a fashionable, glittery, LED-light embossed collar and girdle (or 'dog bra' as my human mummy calls it). Not sure I would swap all those necessities in life for a bone, so it's swings and roundabouts really.
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