Man's Best Friend (and I don't mean beer and pizza)

I have not really spent much time around dogs since I was a lot younger.  Growing up we had an outside dog that was some kind of a mongrel (fancy term for mutt...I looked it up!) and I do not necessarily recall that much about him.  This past month though I have spent quite a bit of time with my dad and step-mother's golden retriever.  Although I am not really a dog person, seeing how this dog interacts with people kind of worries me a bit about humanity and here is why:

Whenever my parents are not at home, and it is just me with the dog, she essentially just lays down in front of the door waiting for them to get back.  It is like without her masters around there is less of a reason to live or engage in life.  I know that the dog is a domesticated animal and such but seeing that such complete dependence was bred into dogs in this way kind of makes me wonder why humans would try to create an animal so completely dependent on them for survival.  So in this sense I find it disturbing we willingly manipulated this other living creature to become subservient to us.  Do we harm them physically?  Not necessarily, but it is still somewhat disturbing to think about humanity's drive to subdue others.  I recall someone once saying "look at how someone treats their pets because this will indicate how they will treat you."

Does this simple statement provide insight into the human condition?   I think that if you look at it on an individual basis it shows how someone with absolute power over another living creature will act when power is divided unequally between two parties.  On a society-wide level perhaps it indicates a deep-rooted desire to dominate other living things (including other humans).  It is this latter fact that disturbs me.  If this is indeed the case then humanity must strive to work harder at overcoming this desire for us all to live better and more worthwhile lives with each other.

I recall reading somewhere that the only domesticated animal that would survive without humans is the cat.  This fact has made me respect cats more.  In fact, it makes me feel like the relationship between cats and humans is more symbiotic than one-sided.  It is like the cat gives me companionship (when it feels like it) and in return I give it toys to play with, food, and clean up after it.  In this relationship cats usually seem like they are more than capable of telling their humans "No, I don't feel like it today so I'm going to go do something else."  Perhaps those comics showing cats having domesticaed humans are more true than we would like to admit to ourselves!