I'd like to take a break from my summer vacation to talk to all of you about dogs:
When it comes to animals, none of man's biological engineering projects has been quite so successful or gone on for so long as the creation of the dog. Wikipedia told me that dogs first began to be domesticated from the grey wolf around 15, 000 years ago. It's apparently debated whether or not they naturally evolved towards coexistence with man, or if they were artificially selected from the beginning. Either way, at some point man took up the reigns of their genetic development and radically reshaped the species. We might think of dogs as more 'natural' or 'closer to nature' than humans, but to me this is a bit of a stretch. When you consider that their entire being has been tailored by humans, to coexist with humans, they don't seem quite so natural.
And what is the upshot of all this? The dog is one of the most successful and biologically diverse of all animal species. For 15, 000 years this thing has been reshaped by man into every imaginable variety. From the massive, imposing greyhound, designed for the racetrack, to the tiny, hideous chihuahua, designed for god knows what purpose. The entire progression of the species for fifteen centuries has depended on whether or not man can find another niche to engineer the dog genus into. And yes, in China and South Korea they apparently do eat dog, but that's ok because it's only a specific subspecies of dog specifically bred for the farm! Apparently your typically household pet dog would be considered inedible.
What I'm trying to get at is that there is a seldom considered moral ambiguity here. We have essentially taken a species, once entirely independent, and made it depend on humans for its own existence. Not only that, we have made it love humans unconditionally. They love us in a way that we could never possibly hope to return. I mean, I can hardly leave the house for an hour without my dogs going batshit crazy on my return. These things live for our pleasure and happiness, and desire nothing but a life of servitude. Doesn't something about that ring maniacal genius? Is there anything more evil than forcing something to love you?
And yet, there's common outcry among activists about the way we treat chickens, pigs, and other livestock: raising them to be fatter, and featherless and generally to be miserable. But, I would say, at least we let them fucking hate us for it. If we didn't dominate these species physically and intellectually they'd burst right out that farm door. And there's not a word for the dog that doesn't even know that it's a slave, while everywhere strays are being neutered and euthanized to keep them from returning to their wild, independent existence.
Don't get me wrong, I love my dogs, and I want nothing more than for them to live comfortable, happy lives. I just think it's weird that we look at a farm chicken, featherless: barely able to walk, made to manufacture meat, and think 'monstrosity'. And on the other hand, we see a dog: servile, dependent, made to manufacture love, and think 'man's best friend'.
