Socially-Awkward Dog

Late the other night, I almost tripped over a silhouetted Mittelspitz on a sidewalk who, despite her owner's pull on the leash, had planted herself right in my path as I was walking by. Her owner quickly apologized to me, quipping, "she's a sidewalk hog". I chuckled a bit and walked past, soon realizing that:

I HAD JUST MET SOCIALLY-AWKWARD DOG!!!

The backstory leading up to this humiliating level of excitement had actually begun several months earlier. Like Pongo in 101 Dalmatians, I had started each day by spending a few minutes judging owners and their dogs as they walked through the neighborhood on their missions to stake claim to every fire hydrant in sight.

Having never actually owned a dog or other attention-hungry animal, I had in these few months found it fascinating to watch dogs' interactions whenever they met on the sidewalk. Like a bunch of 5-year-old kids, most dogs wanted to play. Like a bunch of 15-year-old kids, a few shamelessly wanted to do the nasty, while others ran for the hills. And then, like a stoner competing in the Special Olympics, there was Socially-Awkward Dog.

This dog surprised me. At first I thought she was just shy. Whenever she encountered another dog who wanted to wish her Top o' the Morning, she hid behind her owner and faced away. Occasionally she would freeze in place and pretend to be in a happy place watching grass grow. Being partial to awkwardidity myself, seeing Socially-Awkward Dog would thoroughly make my day, and I soon started keeping an eye out for her specifically. The night I nearly tripped over her in the dark though, I realized that she didn't quite understand that she'd just lined herself up to take a shin-kick to the face, and it dawned on me that she's not just awkward, she's actually stupid. And it got me to thinking.

Everyone knows a "special" dog or two. I've met a couple that tend to bury themselves in strangers' crotches, haven't figured out how to turn left, or like to bulldoze their way across carpet using their foreheads. If these dogs were human, they'd be in mental hospitals. But they're not...they're just funny.

The underlying issue here is that, with the advent of veterinary clinics and breeding over the last 15,000 years or so, the process of natural selection has been almost entirely removed from the canine species. No longer is it survival of the fittest, but rather survival of the cutest. We're breeding beautiful, docile little creatures whose crowning achievements include warming feet and bringing in the morning paper. Granted, we do have dogs that spend their entire lives looking for drugs, but again, if they were doing that as humans they'd have ended up in the slammer a long time ago.

Over the past thirty years or so, dog companionship has been steadily on the rise. They say a dog is man's best friend. They also say that someone can tell a lot about you based on the company you keep. Needless to say, the signs aren't looking good. At this rate I'll be tripping over people standing on the sidewalk by the time I'm 50, but that might be because natural selection is a joke for humans now too...and it's not very funny. But at least we'll all be pretty!