Dog Appreciation 101

I really love dogs. I've had exactly one pet dog, a now 13 year old cockapoo named Chelsea. She looks like this:

She's completely blind in one eye, well on her way in the other, and pretty convincingly deaf as well. But if she's not the best little dog ever...

The reasons why dogs are awesome are numerous. If you don't know any of them, a good place to start would be to watch the NOVA documentary called Dogs Decoded. (Available on Netflix! My life is an advertisement for Netflix.)

Anyway, dogs are awesome because they've evolved basically for the purpose of living in harmony with humans. After thousands of years of selective breeding, they are nothing like their wolf ancestors. But humans have domesticated lots of other animals - why have only dogs come this far?

Dogs come in an enormous range of sizes, shapes and colors. And they are still all the same species. This variability is found only in dogs because of the unique flexibility of their genes. All house cats look basically the same, but dogs, for this reason, come in breeds that are entirely different from one another.

How did this variation in appearance get started? Well, the answer has been found in only a few generations of selective breeding among foxes in Russia. Researchers bred together the most "tame" foxes and after a couple generations, not only did the foxes begin to behave like dogs - they began to look like dogs. Their ears flopped over, their tails curled, their fur began to come in in patches and spots of different colors. What happened is that the most docile foxes had the most puppy-like genes: both in temperament and physical appearance. These traits that we love in dogs (floppy ears, curly tails) are juvenile traits. Selective breeding allowed these traits to persist into adulthood. Further selective breeding produced dogs with a consistent appearance - a breed standard. But it all started with temperament.

The amazing evolution of dogs only begins with their looks. They connect with humans in ways no other animal can, even the most intelligent and human-like. Dogs respond to hand gestures without being trained, and even watch the motion of our eyes. In one experiment, a chimpanzee and a dog were presented with two cups. Under one was a tasty treat - under the other, nothing. The dog (an ordinary, every day dog) watched the person who sat behind the cups as he looked directly at the one which held the treat. When the dog was released it went to the right cup every time. The chimp however had no interest in the human and when it was released it went bumbling over to whichever cup it pleased - and did not pass the test. 

Dogs not only respond to our communication with them, but they have developed ways to communicate with us. Wolves in the wild do not bark, except as a warning to other wolves. Domesticated dogs, as you may have noticed, bark all the time - and most of the time, it's directed at us. They want something: food, attention, to be let out. And barking proves to be an effective way to get what they want.

While the barking adaptation may be a little annoying, no one can deny that a dog's hopeless devotion to his master is one of the greatest things in the world. Every time my dog notices I'm in the same room as her (might take her a while, she is mostly blind), she wags her tail and downright smiles at me. It's just pure exuberance - no matter if we've been gone for a week or fifteen minutes. There's something sort of inspiring, too, about really well trained dogs, in the way they stare at their human for their next command and hold treats tortuously on their snouts until given the signal. Not to mention dogs who save lives, and military dogs, and service dogs, and the legendary few who sleep each night at the grave of their deceased owners.

I just really love dogs. And I've only ever had one dog. If all goes according to plan, I will own many, many dogs in my life time. Next up, of course, are two Italian Greyhounds named Marco and Polo. These are my post-college, apartment dogs. They'll look something like this:

Here are some other breeds that I adore. (I clearly have a type: long, skinny legs; long, skinny noses; long and skinny is key.) 

Bedlington Terriers look like sheep.

Manchester Terriers have all the elegance
of a doberman in a smaller sized package.

Dachshunds are great and always will be.

I like dogs that look closer to wolves or foxes than to say, cats or monkeys. No squished up faces for me. Gross. In my opinion, the 2012 Best in Show, the horrible, monkey-faced, rat-bodied, mop-ball Pekingese should be demoted to cat, but that would be an insult to cats.

It's just awful. Absolutely awful.

In fact, China has produced a lot of pretty terrible dogs in their long history. They make up for it with sesame chicken, but just barely. I also believe that a dog breed should exist to serve some kind of purpose. Even poodles exist for hunting water birds (they look the part when they aren't forced to sport awful haircuts). Again, China - what are you doing? The Chinese have created many variations on the Emperor Sleeve Dog.

Chinese Crested Dogs aren't entirely unacceptable in
my opinion, but they're sort of flamboyantly pathetic.

Chinese Imperial Dogs. Honestly. Are they in an Easter basket?
It's just degrading. I also like my dogs to look intelligent, and
these things look  incredibly stupid. Not to judge or anything.

Some people like Pugs. I am not one of those people.

It's like you can feel the pain in this Shih Tzu's eyes.
It's blank, glossed-over eyes.

This is a Japanese Chin, but it was on the Wikipedia page of Dog
Breeds Originating in China, so I'm gonna put it here. If by Chin
they mean Lack-Thereof, I guess the name fits. It just looks like a
stupid, ugly monkey to me, though.

Miniature Shar Pei. I have more respect for this
dog than the previous few, but that's not saying much.

Australians, however, they know how to make dogs. That's because they're ranching people descended from British convicts. Plus, they all look like dingoes. (Australian dogs, not Australian people.)

Of course the Australian Shepherd. Lovely. 

A Koolie. Absolutely gorgeous.

Even their froo-froo dogs, like the Silky Terrier, are respectable.

I generally prefer smaller dogs, just because I can scoop them up and they're easier and I realized recently that the feeling of having a dog's mouth around your entire arm is kind of freaky. But at the same time I love the idea of owning a Great Dane and a SmartCar simultaneously. Just for the comic juxtaposition of it.