Swiss archaeologists have unearthed bone fragments of a domestic dog that lived at least fourteen thousand years ago. The skull and jawbone shards actually came to light in 1873 but nobody paid them much mind until recently, when careful examination identified them as belonging to Canis Lupus Familiaris.
I point this out merely to say that evidently we do something deeply human when we care for dogs.
Robert Fulghum of "Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten" fame, has an essay about how he dislikes dogs yet is still a good person. He concludes by citing the case of the Akah tribe of Thailand, who raise canines for food and relate to them roughly as American farmers do to pigs. "There are," he concludes, "other ways to look at dogs."
Looking at dogs - that may be just the point. For fourteen millennia, it seems, we have been looking at dogs and they have been looking back. And somewhere along the way it came about that we raise each other's endorphin levels when we exchange this gaze, lower one another's blood pressure, make one another feel better.
"Why," Fulghum asks, "do we have all these dogs and treat them so well? Because we need protection from one another? Because we need some kind of love that humans can't give each other? Because we're bored or lonely or sentimental hunter/gatherers at heart, or what?" I think the answer is actually, "all of the above."
“We are alone, absolutely alone on this chance planet; and amid all the forms of life that surround us, not one, excepting the dog has made an alliance with us.” ~ Max Depree
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