Breedism and Human Supremacy
By Elona Baron (as told to Laurie Baron)
SAN DIEGO−In the beginning there were wolves, and the Lord decided they were too scary for Adam and Eve who were scheduled to be created the next day. Thus, God took a rib from a wolf and created the first dog to be less threatening to Adam and Eve and to bring them their fig leaves in the morning. After Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden, dogs lovingly ingratiated themselves with humans by evolving expressive eyes, heads that tilt, smiling mouths, soft tongues, and wagging tails. In return humans provided them with food, shelter, and water.
Unfortunately, humans lost sight of this mutuality in favor of God’s command “to fill the earth and subdue it; rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that crawls upon the earth.” They started to breed dogs for specialization like fighting, guarding, herding, hunting, and racing. They fabricated standards of body shapes and grooming undermining the solidarity of dogs. They clipped Doberman’s ears to look like they had permanent erections. They shaved Poodles unevenly so their bare spots were accented with fluffy ankles, ears, heads, and tails. They shrunk other dogs to be diminutive Toys. They pitted formerly friendly Bull Dogs against each other, rendering them into pugilistic Pit Bulls. Whenever dogs mated dogs from other breeds, humans denigrated them as mongrels and mutts. Humans still treat these hybrids as less desirable even though the racist Golden Deceiver married a woman who resembles an Afghan hound.
Despite this history of discrimination, eugenic manipulation, and stereotyping, dogs remained man’s best friend. Man, however, did not always reciprocate. “Subduing” dogs often degenerated into beating, burning, confining, eating, euthanizing, neglecting, shooting, starving, and torturing them. Evil humans demeaned dogs with epithets and phrases like bitch, choke like a dog, cur, die like a dog, go to the dogs, she’s a dog, throw someone to the dogs, and work like a dog. This steady stream of verbal defamation in tandem with the conviction that humans are superior incites and legitimates the violence meted out towards dogs. It is time that responsible human leaders denounce such actions and attitudes. As Charles de Gaulle once declared, “The better I get to know men, the more I find myself loving dogs.”
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Elona resides with Bonnie and Laurie Baron. The latter is professor emeritus of history at San Diego State University. He may be contacted via lawrence.baron@sdjewishworld.com. No animals were harmed in the writing of this column.