Dog On A Chain

When I was a kid roughly 60 years ago, we had a bit of a different attitude towards pets than is commonly exhibited currently.  Cats were routinely declawed, a practice that is widely thought to be cruel these days.  Dogs didn't live in the house back then for huge numbers of dog owners.  Quite frequently, the dog was on a chain in the backyard with access to their doghouse with food and water but generally restricted to an area the radius of the chain length.

Dogs that were kept in that manner served as early warning systems if someone (or some thing) walked through the yard or up to the house. Today we recognize that as being the casual cruelty that it was but, back then that was just normal.  

Of course, then as now, things were not perfect.  Sometimes the dog slipped their collar or their repeated jerking on the chain caused it to break or come loose.  Then it was time to go looking for the dog to recapture it before it could do damage or be hit by a car and injured or killed.  I myself was bitten by our neighbor's dog once when he got loose.  The dog knew me and generally we got along but, when he got loose and I happened by on an evil bicycle, he felt he had to defend his home and pack.

Some folks did things a little differently and would put up a kennel with tall enough walls that the dog could not get over it.  The dog house and most everything the dog needed would be inside the kennel.  I would imagine that to the dog it was a lot less cruel than the chain but at the end of the day, we were still isolating pack animals and today, anyone who cares to can know what torture that is.

Keeping the dog in the kennel rather than on the chain did not change much else about the animal's behavior.  They still barked at anything outside of what they considered "normal" and they still occasionally got loose.  When they got loose, they acted pretty much just like a dog that had slipped his chain.  For the most part, whether it was your dog or someone else's, you really did not want to see the dog running loose.  Cars, motorcycles and bicycles were guaranteed to be chased.  Pedestrians were hardly guaranteed safety but walking was better than running if you wanted to avoid inciting the dog's ire.

The chain and the kennel were physical restraints but they were also the method of indoctrinating the dog as to what was his to guard and who he had to respect.  Once the dog was loose, it was their choice.  They might choose to expand the area they were guarding and they would definitely let you know if you were not in the group of humans they chose to respect.  They were not bad dogs.  They were dogs being dogs and doing dog stuff.  

These days we tend to keep the dogs in the house with the humans.  Responsible dog owners will do some level of socialization and training that simply did not happen very frequently back in the day.  Still, dogs and dog trainers/owners understand that there are different acceptable standards of behavior when the dog is on leash or in the house than when the dog is running free in the dog park or accompanying their human on a walk in the woods.

The thing is, dog behavior is not unique.  They do a lot of the same things that humans do in a way that makes sense to dogs.  We can learn from that.  We humans are also animals.  We exhibit some of the same tendencies even if it is not obvious to everyone that we are doing that.  

A human at work will have a different standard of behavior than a human at home or a human running loose.  The human perceives a different level of responsibility in each scenario.  As a general rule, a human is more constrained at work, less so at home and most open to saying and doing atypical stuff when they are "running loose".

Now, I am no spring chicken but I do not predate do gooders.  Even back then there were those who advocated for not using the chain or kennel to isolate pack animals.  Still they did not run around removing chains or opening kennels randomly as they encountered such a situation.  They knew the dog would have to learn a different way of how to be without the chain or kennel as a restraint.

We can apply that attitude to humans and the smart people will.  We understand that at some level, jobs constrain humans.  Our desire for increased income, security for our families(packs), and reluctance to institute drastic change for no apparent reason serve to reinforce that constraint. 

Jobs though, are not handed down from heaven.  They can be taken away or simply become superfluous.  What happens then??  What do humans do when the constraints are removed??  We will probably be finding out soon.  

One of the (in theory) unintended effects of Felon47 instigating the firing of several journalists, comics, lawyers and academics is that firing removes constraints. No longer need they worry about losing their jobs.  They don't have to give a shit what the FCC thinks.  A significant percentage of any audience they have previously cultivated are likely to seek them out wherever they land.

The internet, social media in particular, is collecting quite a few journalists, comics, lawyers and academics that have been randomly released from their chains.  Blue Sky, Substack, Reddit and some smaller outlets are starting to be gifted with the unconstrained musings of those sacrifices to Felon47's ego.  

I sincerely hope that Colbert, Kimmel, Lemon, Phang, Dowd et al remain hyper aware that their metaphorical chains have been removed.  I sincerely hope there is a whole lot of biting that will be happening very soon.