Dog Island

I'll get to the topic of this town's recent dispute over the ownership of dangerous dogs, but before that, I have to confess a bad habit of mine as well as a crime I commit on rare occasions. Sometimes I walk home from work, and I typically smoke a cigarette as I do so. The cherry is gone by the time I reach the middle of the same block, but I hold on to the stub until I reach the house on the corner. At that point, a deranged terrier in the fenced-in backyard spots me and yaps its ineffectual fury. The yapping continues as I walk beyond its vantage point. I toss my stub on the front porch and smile. I pass a dingy fence with a sign promoting that greedy creep Scott Walker and my smile broadens. I turn the corner. The pint-sized beast won't shut up. My smile vanishes as I scowl through the meshing of the metallic fence that divides us. The dog scowls back.

“You belong on Dog Island, bitch,” I tell the terrier. The pooch takes offense to this. Two blocks away, when I open the front-door to my house, I can still hear that dog's psychotic and shrill bark.

I'm not a dog-lover, obviously. (Plus I'm allergic to cats, so I don't bother with them, either.) My disinterest in dogs was probably inherited from my dad. He never saw the sense in welcoming a non-human mouth to feed, another life-form to rack up medical bills, and one more eventual death in the family. For my dad and me, having to fret over the well-being of certain people is quite enough trouble. Pets aren't worth the hassle to us. After work, we prefer to drink our beer in peace without distractions from a needy pet who woofs at the Big Dipper every time he needs to go outside and pee. We absolutely hate it when our faces are licked by a creature who also uses his tongue to clean the space between his own neuter scar and—ahem--tail. And finally, the act of stroking the fur of an animal—however cute or affectionate—seems grossly overrated to my dad and me.

That stated, I don't hate dogs, either; I just can't at all relate to them, and more importantly, I don't expect them to understand much about human constructs like morality and society. Dogs are wired to instincts that are more stubbornly primal than ours. Dogs are not innately programmed to enjoy parades and birthday parties; in their natural state, they'd much rather maul a pheasant's throat or dig a hole in the ground for hours just for the hell of it.

In much the same way that dogs are out in front of humans on walks around the neighborhood, people have to lead dogs into domestication—even when the dogs, like their owners, feel tired, confused, and cranky. More so than any specific breed with a bad reputation, negligent or abusive owners are the source of most dog- attacks. Owners must routinely drill obedience and decency into their dogs; otherwise, the consequences can be almost as disastrous as giving a hand-grenade to a baby and telling him not to pull out the pin.

Pitbulls and rottweilers should not be banned due to irresponsible people, and furthermore, there is a more ideal and compassionate alternative to putting dogs to death because they are harmful or simply unwanted. The feral beast who gave Billy a pretty serious "owie" doesn't deserve to be killed, and neither does the poor orphaned pooch whose time under the roof of the Humane Society has run out, nor that yapping terrier who causes a public disturbance every time a skinny Feingold-voter walks past. There is a better way to deal with those problematic mutts, and here it is: Dog Island.

Let me break it down. People should select an uninhabited island that nobody wants in the first place and then round up and ship all the shady dogs to that place. To humans, Dog Island functions as a prison, similar to Alcatraz, but the dogs will embrace it as a return to pure wilderness and instinct.

The famed Dog Boat would sail to Dog Island with all the dogs leaning their heads out of the port-holes excitedly. Located somewhere off the coast of the Atlantic (or the Pacific, I'm good either way), Dog Island would boast plenty of prey, dense foliage, drinkable water, and whichever climate caters best to canines. (Mediterranean, maybe? Humid subtropical? That's not for me to determine. Hey--I'm not a scientist.)

Once freed on Dog Island, anything goes for the likes of Rusty, Fifi, and Crippler. Now, the laws of nature can be unfair and cruel, and survival of the fittest favors the sort of bloodthirsty dobermans that Michael Vick traumatized, I'm sad to admit, but it's vital to keep in mind that Dog Island would at least grant those mangy misfits a chance at survival. I can't say the same, however, about shooting a lethal injection into Rusty's bloodstream.

To recap, it's senseless to ban a breed of dog just because their owners are too dumb, lazy, and/ or hateful to even take care of themselves. Secondly, unclaimed dogs from the pound shouldn't have to be put down just because no one volunteered to take them in. Finally, I'd like to add that a syringe full of pentobarbital* ultimately has the same effect as lobbing bacon in the air and setting the unwitting dog up for an alley-oop kill-shot.

So please, write letters to our state's governor and demand that he lend his support of Dog Island to Congress. The way I see it, we're going to be saving an awful lot of money by lowering our standards of public education, folks, and some of that left-over cash could go far in the funding of the Dog Island project.




* I had to Google-search “animal euthanasia” in order to find out what the hell this is.