The wife and I went to get our dogs their rabies vaccinations today. It was my Great Dane bitch and my American Superior puppy, who is about a year and 3 months or so old.
Last week we took our sire mastiff American Superior.
My two dogs towered over every other dog around.
Even here, in a rural area (though not nearly as rural as it used to be, even at the fringes) almost no-one had a real dog.
A few people did. I saw one with a pretty Siberian Huskie, one guy had a German Shepherd, though it was young and small, just a pup. One Mexican guy had a cross between a Rottweiler and a Pit Bull. It was kinda snippy but well behaved enough. It wouldn't have lasted long against Bart though.
Everyone else had these little yap-yap, nip-nip, tea-cup, I don't know what the hell they were dogs. Which is fine I guess but I kept wondering, what good are they? What use do they really serve?
From the amount of yapping they did they seemed pretty effective noise makers, but in a real fight I thought, one hard kick to the snout and the skull of these things would cave in like a house of cards. They seemed about as dangerous and useful as a bicycle horn at a monster truck rally.
My dogs were enormous by comparison.
The other dogs cowered from them but for most folks they were amazing and the belles of the ball. Kids ran up to them saying, "Gosh," ooing and ahhing, petting all over them and a few of the smaller kids asked if they could be ridden. (I don't let kids ride my dogs, even though my bitch and my sire could carry them.) Adults kept saying, "what are those?" "man they are big," and "good Lord, what does that thing weigh?"
Seeing the size of these other things though made me realize two things. People keep down-breeding the size of dogs til they are smaller and more useless than most cats. All they are really good for is cuddling on the couch with chicks like a cat. Which seems kinda shameful and downright counter-productive to me. the function of a dog, in my opinion, is not only as a pet, but also as a real companion to go in the woods with, to play, wrestle and fight with, and to serve as a faithful and fearless guardian for your family, friends, and neighborhood for when you can't be around in person. It's like people are breeding the purpose out of the animals simply so they can carry them around in their back pockets like they were some kinda weird, personal dwarf-child. I got nothing against that kinda dog as a pet, but if that's all your packing then it seems to me like you're shooting plastic pellets at potential bears when real trouble starts.
Secondly it made me realize how to a large extent so much of the territory around me is becoming suburbanized, urbanized, feeble and febrile. Urbanization tends to take all of the power, self-reliance, strength, and health right out of a people. And not just takes it out of the people, it seems to take it even out of the animals around them and the animals they choose to have around them. Like people are downbreeidng all sense of vitality and power right out of themselves merely for the extremely questionable benefits of urban convenience and urban conformity.
I got no interest in it myself.
Weakness, puniness, yappiness, being like everybody else in the herd (especially when the herd is headed downhill off a sharp cliff-face), and down-breeding.
No interest in it for myself, my kids, my lands, or my animals.
More empower, more strength, more self-reliance, more capabilities, not less.
Certainly not less.
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