Book Review with Dog Pictures: A Dog Is Listening

This post is brought to you by dogs. In honor of Roger Caras's memory and preferences, these dogs are or at least appear to be fancy breeds. 

1. Eddie, an Airedale Terrier from Pennsylvania

Eddie is described as undersocialized and scared of new people. He is looking for a foster home with the possibility of permanent adoption. The foster home needs to have a big yard where Eddie can keep away from people he doesn't know well. A dog playmate is also recommended. Eddie weighs about thirty pounds. Since he'd be difficult to sell and they recommend fostering first, the shelter might make a real deal with someone who wanted to adopt this shy dog. Eddie's web page is https://www.petfinder.com/dog/eddie-44761986/pa/spring-city/forever-home-animal-rescue-pa568/ .

2. Itty Bitty, a Belgian Shepherd Malinois from Maryland 

Itty Bitty does not have the most efficient web site manager. Her page mentions that she got that name by being the smallest in the litter, but she's no longer itty-bitty...and then gives no exact weight or measurements. Well, sheep-herding dogs aren't small. They can be smaller than typical American police dogs and still be too big for some people to carry. Itty Bitty is described as a friendly, playful, hand and face licker, already spayed, good with other dogs and children, and fond of chilling in the pool. Meet her via https://www.petfinder.com/dog/itty-bitty-56842412/md/joppa/lucky-tails-inc-rescue-tx2498/ .

3, Messi, a Catahoula Leopard Dog from Atlanta 

For some unexplained reason there are a lot of Catahoula Leopard Dogs in search of homes in and around Atlanta. "Leopard dog" means the coat has dappls of color. I like the shelter's revealing evasiveness in describing this telegenic dog. They can't say much for her, they named her Messi, and if you're in town, you can borrow this great gorgeous mess for two weeks, free of charge, to see how you like living with her. Apart from the library-loan-style "fostering" offer, isn't that the way it goes with shelter dogs? Only in this case they admit it? Messi's web page, https://www.petfinder.com/dog/messi-56773369/ga/atlanta/atlanta-humane-society-ga251/ , doesn't give a precise weight but she's a good-sized hound. 

Now for the book...

Title: A Dog IsListening

Author: Roger A. Caras

Date: 1992

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

ISBN: 0-471-70249-1

Length:228 pages plus 10-page index

Illustrations: many black-and-white pictures

Quote: “The dogs of the world have a whole universe of sound far beyond our reach.”

Everyone knows that dogs normally hear a lot of sounds humans don't. Roger Caras is able to fill six whole pages with facts chosen to communicate his awe at just how much it' possible that dogs hear and we miss.

He goes on like that to consider dogs' other physical traits, their diversity, their lovableness, dogs in history and dogs he's known. A Dog Is Listening is not a guide to the care or training of dogs. There are already a lot of those, Caras was clearly thinking, and what the world needed from the president of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was a general exposition of how he felt about dogs and why.

What he felt about dogs was wonderment. Why? Dogs are wonderful. Caras doesn't say "Everyone should live with a half-dozen or so dogs" because he was unfortunately aware that a lot of people aren't fit to own dogs, but the overall effect of reading his book is to make you think how much richer life is with dogs in it.

"Dogs are children that are never able to grow up, no matter how smart they are" was the thought the publisher chose to spotlight on the back cover. All Caras seems to have meant was that dogs need human supervision to live among humans. Dogs can go feral--they evolve, in a few years, toward the prototype dog, the coyote--and do quite well at surviving and perpetuating their DNA, at the cost of the qualities humans love about our pets. Coyotes are not loving or loyal, will not protect your home or children, will not help you in any situation whatsoever, and aren't even anything to look at. Dogs grow up to be dogs. They can learn enough of a human language to tell when they're being used as substitutes for human babies. Some of them like humans enough to play along with such foolishness; others may bite.

The quote goes on to summarize the many ways many humans have expressed the thought that they prefer relationships to dogs, where they know where they stand--they're dominant--to relationships with humans. While this is how many people feel, I think serious animal lovers might want to challenge it. Do we, in fact, love other humans? Do we have human friends? If so, we would agree that a dog is no substitute for a human friend. But then again, a human is no substitute for a dog friend. If blessed to live in the country, we may have noticed that a dog is also no substitute for a cat friend, a horse friend, a sheep friend, or a chicken friend. If you've become fond of a human friend's dogs, you may have noticed that, with some dogs, you are not the leader of the pack--the dogs make it clear that, though treated as a friend because the leader of the pack said you were one, you're a fellow follower. Any authority you have was given to you by Their Human. So you don't have a need to know where you stand, or more specifically that you're dominant, in order to enjoy a dog's company. Probably it's more accurate, if we think about it, to say that most humans like specific dogs for the same reasons we like specific people. Under the right conditions we can generalize a set of pleasant relationships with dogs into a general feeling that we like all dogs. In practice, though, we still like some dogs much more than others. Love is an individual thing.

Caras, being one of the people who generally enjoy watching other animals, getting to know them, and bonding with some of them as pets, does not challenge that sneaking implication that "You only like dogs because you don't have enough satisfactory relationships with humans." Actually, he tells us, he had opportunities to be the "voice of reason" reminding his family that they couldn't adopt all the homeless animals in, or turned away from, the shelter. And he goes on for pages and pages of stories that make the point that most animal people are mentally sound, socially competent individuals who happen to bond with individuals of other species as well as our own. But he doesn't try to claim that that's true for all pet owners. A case could be made that, in his book, he offers stories of socially competent individuals' cross-species bonds by way of inspiration to the other kind of pet owners.

There have actually been debates, among people whose lives focus on animals, about whether the domesticated animals should be forced into extinction as the world implements the (male) Socialists' Master Plan for keeping the products of unlimited male self-indulgence in slums and feeding them on vermin. Many, of course, don't take such "plans" seriously because we don't believe nature will allow them to work: if humans can't stop procreating "the billions" feeding whom will require bizarre high-tech alternatives to raising natural food on natural farms, and we are a species in which the increase in non-reproductive sexual behavior isn't stopping the population from increasing, then plagues will take care of human overpopulation. COVID-19, though helpful to the subsidized medical care programs of the world, was only a beginning. Plagues that cure overpopulation affect the young. Those who believe that humankind will one day be reduced to "billions" of huddled masses in slums, dependent on rations of syntho-slop engineered by the technocrat elite, are however working to render domestic animals extinct. They've succeeded in destroying some breeds of sheep and chickens, and their current target is dogs and cats. The Humane Society's loathsome leader, in a book called The Bond, envisioned a future where our grandchildren's instinct to bond with dogs, cats, and horses will be redirected toward rats, cockroaches, and Central Park pigeons. Into this debate, Roger Caras is remembered for dropping the statement that it would be a shame if the fancy breeds of animals weren't preserved. Or, in practice, commercial breeders should carry on raising pedigreed animals, some of which are produced by dysfunctional or downright lethal genes, and animal "rescuers" should keep on sterilizing or killing undocumented, snob-appeal-free animals with, often, more functional genes.

This opinion is apparent when Caras discusses specific breeds, even though the purpose of his chapter on that topic is to express wonderment at dogs' genetic diversity rather than to advise people considering a new pet. As of 1992, he tells us, the America Kennel Club recognizes (or recognized) 145 breeds; Caras was aware of over 300 breeds some people recognized, though names like "Labradoodle" and "Peke-a-poo" have proliferated further since 1992. He acknowledges that disease genes and lethal genes are found in some popular dog breeds, but doesn't come near listing the number of possible problems befoire expressing his real prejudice:

"As for mixed-breed dogs (my name for them is the rather more dignified "random-bred"), Lord love'em, we always have some. They are as fulfillingly doggy as any pure breed and deserving fo just as much care...We must stop encouraging or allowing random-bred animals (dogs or cats) from breeding, however, since we are killing well over twelve million a year because there are not enough homes. For the time being that means surgery although a chemical solution to the problem will soon be available. No dog...should ever become a parent unless...its genes are really needed to perpetuate a historically valid line."

Meh. I consider the author photo on the jacket. Approaching age 70, Caras had flabby jowls and small eyes, faults that would surely cost him the trophy in any well run man show. Even without observing his floor-cleaning skills I think we could fairly say that he should not have become a parent, although he was. Consistency forbids consideration of any testimony about his having been a good father, having raised competent offspring who have carried on some of his projects. Surgery was clearly indicated although a chemical solution to the problem undoubtedly existed even before 1992.

Seriously, this reviewer thinks we need to be mindful of the prospects before anyone becomes a parent. Can you, or people you know, guarantee a good uncrowded home for any kittens or puppies your pet produces? Thanks to the overzealous neuter-and-spay campaign, on the East Coast there is actually a demand for pets who aren't in the hands of control freaks, so allowing your pet to be a parent may be ethically acceptable if the baby animals are healthy. When problem pregnancies in a female or defects in the offspring of a male become obvious, sterilization is obviously necessary. When you are not willing to keep puppies or kittens yourself until they're claimed by decent humans, or when you want to banish a particular animal from your home and can't find someone who's willing to put up with its misbehavior in a few days, then you should schedule the operations. Meanwhile humans need to think harder about the prospects for baby humans. Will they grow up in a world where every child is precious, where human life has a very high value, where these potential children of yours will find it easy to work their way through school and pay for nice houses with gardens? If and whenever that becomes true, the concept of a "big happy family" with multiple children can be taken seriously, as it was a hundred years ago. So long as the answers to the questions prospective parents need to ask are what they are today, humans need to make a commitment to produce one child or none. If God wants you to have two children, you will have twins. After one birth, neuter and spay yourselves.

I am not suggesting that all pets should reproduce freely forever. Personally I've come to suspect, though it was never officially diagnosed, that the Cat Sanctuary's original rescued alley cat Patchnose had FIV; despite losses after glyphosate poisoning episodes, Serena and her kittens have been much healthier and hardier than the cats in the female line of descent were. If FIV and chemical poisoning don't intervene, an all-natural Cat or Dog Sanctuary can become an overcrowded colony that's likely to be ravaged by plagues, even if you pay for all those vaccines against the most deadly infectious diseases. Sterilization has its place and, as in humans, the operation is much cheaper, simpler, and safer for males than for females. But in the thirty years since this book was first published, the East Coast states have seen a human-life-threatening decrease in free-range cat populations, an unholy alliance between "rescuers" and breeders to inflate the costs of keeping animals and prevent children having the valuable life experience of keeping pets, that need to be reversed. Neutering and spaying are options to be considered mindfully.

Despite his prejudices, Caras had access to a rich collection of dog lore. Apart from pages 222 through 225, if you're willing to tolerate some credulity about evolutionary speculation as science, this book is a treasure chest of fun facts and charming stories about dogs. Dog people should love it. And of course this book was intended to be shelved next to its companion, A Cat Is Watching.