PeakOil is You
I want a dog.
Re: I want a dog.
by horsestoaster » Tue 07 Nov 2006, 20:09:30
I'll bet my husband has some spare parts in the garage for that robot-thingee arm mentioned earlier!Sometimes so-called higher education seems to stupidfy otherwise intelligent people.I'll bet there's enough parts in that garage for a K-9 unit too!
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Re: I want a dog.
by PenultimateManStanding » Tue 07 Nov 2006, 23:14:25
my cat Joe used to bring dead birds to the doorstep. I just liked him, I didn't need proof of whatever. He was a cool cat. I saved his life once. He was trapped in a car for a few days. I fed him clam juice and cared for him. I loved that cat.
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Re: I want a dog.
by EndOfSewers » Tue 07 Nov 2006, 23:30:42
My dog brought me a dead bird, and not just to the doorstep. He dropped it right on my chest as I was laying on the couch. My ex-gf's dog brought her a live grasshopper. It jumped out of the dog's mouth right into her face and much shrieking ensued.
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Re: I want a dog.
by WildRose » Tue 07 Nov 2006, 23:40:08
For a dozen years or so, I ran with a black lab (my mom & dad's dog). That dog loved to run; I could run 8 miles with him, take him home afterwards and he'd be ready for the next person who'd take him out. He was my constant running companion, at a time when I was learning a lot about myself and pushing my own limits. I ran with him until he got too old to run, but he did live to be 17. My parents swore that all the exercise he got determined his longevity.
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Re: I want a dog.
by EndOfSewers » Wed 08 Nov 2006, 00:02:06
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('WildRose', ' ')My parents swore that all the exercise he got determined his longevity.
My mom's little mutt lived to about 16. He got a lot of exercise each summer but he (and my mom, for that matter) were too old and frail to get out much during the winter. Each winter he'd get more and more feeble, then stage an amazing recovery in the spring when he could go for daily runs again.
I haven't found anything yet than can tire my dog out. I take him to the top of a hill and throw his tennis ball as far as I can . . . I get tired from throwing faster than he gets tired from sprinting up and down the hill. I suppose I could run him behind the car but that would offend my PO sensibilities a bit too much.
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EndOfSewers - Peat
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Re: I want a dog.
by WildRose » Wed 08 Nov 2006, 00:31:43
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EndOfSewers', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('WildRose', ' ')My parents swore that all the exercise he got determined his longevity.
My mom's little mutt lived to about 16. He got a lot of exercise each summer but he (and my mom, for that matter) were too old and frail to get out much during the winter. Each winter he'd get more and more feeble, then stage an amazing recovery in the spring when he could go for daily runs again.
I haven't found anything yet than can tire my dog out. I take him to the top of a hill and throw his tennis ball as far as I can . . . I get tired from throwing faster than he gets tired from sprinting up and down the hill. I suppose I could run him behind the car but that would offend my PO sensibilities a bit too much.
Interesting, how your mom's dog made such an amazing recovery every spring. We witnessed something similar to that last spring with the dog we have now, a German Shepherd, aged 15. She was having trouble with urinary incontinence over the winter and she really seemed to be going downhill. Then, in May, we took her along with us for a getaway in the mountains - she's always accompanied us on our trips - and we couldn't believe the transformation. The incontinence disappeared (has not returned to this day) and she kept pace with us on all of our hikes, and just generally seemed to find the trip as invigorating as we did.
So, your pooch is a live wire, eh? I know of a few people who take their dogs along (on leash) when they ride their bikes, and that's how they give their dogs a good workout. I've never tried that - was always scared the dog might pull me in the wrong direction, but I guess it works for some.
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Re: I want a dog.
by BlisteredWhippet » Wed 08 Nov 2006, 17:46:42
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('threadbear', 'W')hippet, I agree with much of what you say. You are a very perceptive and intelligent guy, but you are erecting a straw man here and then tearing it down. I don't see the people who have posted here as being callous or insensitive to nature. They're posting on a peak oil board, so they're likely more aware of the natural world and it's limits than most.
I don't see the connection in my sub-urban environment. I'm not sure what presages environmental awareness, but I would venture to guess it is grounded in exposure, from a young age. Sadly, I find city-dwellers to be almost totally unable to conceptualize above a cartoonish level about the environment.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') saw the news segment on the Japanese fixation on pets too. The upshot was that people are babying their dogs because they're not having children. Is this such a bad thing? Dogs use up far fewer resources than children do, so isn't this a positive response to over population?
Yes, it is positive in respect to population growth, however, pet ownership remains an inferior substitute. I think the underlying problem is that people feel that they can and should address every single perceived need in their emotional lives in any way they can. Having pets as opposed to kids would have been helpful in previous generations; now it is too late.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') completely agree that the Japanese sentimental approach to pet species, at the same time they allow their fishing industry to torture and kill whales, is crazy and absurd.
I feel the same way about the domestic animal holocaust on factory farms, on this continent, in contrast to the indulged lives of our pets. And yes--these issues are unexamined by most people.
Hopefully though, pets will provide a bridge between the consensus trance that people are presently trapped in and illumination about our treatment of non-pet animals.
Well, that is precisely the issue: can pets bridge the consensus trance to ecological awareness? Nothing I see suggests that owning a pet makes one more liable to protest Japanese aquacultural practices, or stop eating BK. What I see is people happily allowing for the Fancy Feast holocaust of Tuna, and rationalizing.
Hope, shmope. The application of pet ownership in reconnecting humanity to nature is a modern "use" of pets. That should be enough to expose pets for what they are: a tabula rasa for projecting anything upon. Before there was a serious global environmental problem, no one suggested pets would be able to help bridge toward a solution. Pets never solved anything, but throughout time and culture, they represented different things, anthropomorphized or not, as different solutions. They are a catch all. Sick people? Pets will heal them. Children irresponsible? Pet will fix. Old people lonely? Pets will fix.
Pets remain a thin, temporary band-aid to existential human problems. Cats in ancient Egypt did not prevent people from dying natural deaths or suffering organic decay. But this kind of myth making goes on today... you can see the modern headlines: "Cat owners found to live 3-5 years longer on average", "Dog owners happier, wealthier", etc., and then you've got millions of people anthropomorphizing their little hearts out to themselves, imagining some illusory effect of their experience, but organizing their non-illusory lives around it. Reality tends to lend itself to the perception of the observer, making it convenient to believe anything you want in order to justify what you expect to see, and easier to ignore anything that does not.
Within this framework, your pet experience becomes a heroic endeavor and you, the superstar object of affection, gets rewarded, validated, ego-stroked, etc.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') know many people who respect animals in the wild for their own sake, and perhaps more so because they sense a personality, a soul, independant from their own, in their pets. They extend this understanding to the natural world. I wouldn't say it is misplaced anthropomorphism, necessarily.
True stewardship is a difficult, complex issue. It cannot be reduced to a single relationship with an animal. Domesticated animals are categorically distinct from wild animals. It is rational and predictable for people to anthropomorphize in this way and extrapolate conclusions based on it. However, this is not sufficient basis for grasping the truth. It 'appeared' to some early cultures that Gods made the waves roll in and out. Domesticated animals as nature-daemons is a several-thousand year old practice. Environmental science is a new discipline, and like Earth Sciences, overturns old paradigms of human understanding. Animal nature-daemons, like myths of sea gods, are solutions for only one thing: a transitory disconnect between understanding. Once you understand how tidal forces work, it is obvious the previous theory is incorrect, yet tidal movement does not change, so there is little apparent practical difference. So in the near-term in conditions of normalcy, there is no discernible difference. Problem is, when a tidal event occurs, like a tsunami or some shit, the interpretations differ: on one hand, a geologic event, on the other, God hates us and brings His wrath. So while believing in the short term that pets bridge the consensus trap gap will appear to work, eventually, you will be able to see right through it, and that gap will be some horrible event, like extinction or mass habitat loss. People lead psychic lives shrouded in mythologic, illusionistic thinking.
That people athropomorphize is problematic. Its expected and widespread, but utterly reductive as a practice of interpretation. While all things can be anthropomorphized, it is still a frame of reference where understanding is formulated using humans as the template. Understanding non-human things on their own terms gives you more accurate picture of reality. Even animism is preferable to anthropomorphism in that it clearly defined human and non-human in different classes of comparison. Anthropomoprhism was originally identified as a fallacy in reasoning. It is a common human fantasy and almost universally undermines any conclusion based on it, becuase it is too overly simplistic. It can help you relate to something in a rudimentary way, but its not using your real powers of transformative thought to gain insight. It is pre-primitive thinking, cartoon thinking.
I had a friend whose house plants were always looking like shit, they really seemed to be having a hard time. As a botanist, I would occasionally mention that they looked like they needed water, or some light, or repotting. I would stand back and kind of observe my friend's relationship with the plants without really intervening any argument (as you might expect). It struck me that what characterized his thinking was total anthropomorphism. He would stroke the leaves, and talk about how the plant was "unhappy", or "tired", or other anthropomophic terms. He would "fluff" the leaves with his hand as if it could "feel" it. His plants never looked any good, and I think it was a direct result of him lacking the ability to understand the plant on its own terms. This guy was no dummy, either. Anthropomorphism is a simple error in conceptualizing the world around us.
For this reason, I suspect anthropomorphism in many problems people have, from plants to pets, to inanimate objects, cars, computers, to whole social and political systems. From my background in botany, I simply looked at the plant like it was a plant and immediately recognized its problems as a plant. His anthropomorphism was getting him and his plant nowhere.
The pathway out of consensus reality is not the application of more mythical thinking. It requires clearer values, and clearer perceptions. At its heart, I think consensus trance reality is driven by the values of simple self-fulfillment. All acts are filtered through a seive that judges in those terms. Earth-level consciousness is not possible from this perspective.
How is my friend's dysfunctional relationship with a plant reflective of the values of self-fulfillment? Simply that the plant seemed to exist for his sake. Decorative, a recepticle for anthropomorphism. He believed he was a caretaker. In truth he was only a caretaker of his own projection. The impact on the plant was real, however.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he problem here isn't primarily pet ownership, but an epidemic of narcissism that has many people overlook the independant soul of the other, be it pet, mate or child.
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