OUR DOGS CIVILIZE[D] US!

Donald McCaig, Eminent Dogs, Dangerous Men: Searching Through Scotland for a Border Collie (New York: Harper Perennial, 1991, 1992) ("It is politically unpopular to claim that human character traits (intelligence, courage, ingenuity) can be inherited. But that's the working belief in the sheepdog breeding world. It is thought that a dog sired by Wiston Cap, one who looks like the old man, will likely behave like his eminent sire." Id. at 9. "Learning a dog's worldview, altering it (within bounds), accepting a dog's understanding as sometimes more reliable than a man's--these commonplace tools of dog training are a mild cultural treason. The rare dog handlers who, by gift or necessity, become truly dangerous inhabit a reality most of us can scarcely imagine--every day they share the thoughts, habits, tics and aspirations of a genuinely alien mind. When I asked these men about their connection with their dogs, they were reticent. They were also, without exception, masterful and deeply obsessed." Id. at 78. "It has been twenty thousand years since man and dog formed their partnership. That we have altered the dog genetically is well understood; it is hardly known how they changed us. Since dogs could hear and smell better than men, we could concentrate on sight. Since courage is commonplace in dogs, men's adrenal glands could shrink. Dogs, my making us more efficient predators, gave us time to think. In short, dogs civilized us." Id. at 132. "In America, dogs are rarely seen in offices, shops, subways, trains or buses, and only in our mountain West will you find a dog in a bar. Sometimes I think Americans are afraid of dogs." Id. at 133. "J. M. Wilson once said the proper thing to do with a dog that qualified at the National is put it away until the International. This sound advice is universally ignored. When a man has a dog that's almost, almost perfect, it's beyond human restraint to leave the dog alone, Instead, they'll work on that slight imperfection, screwing the dog down tighter and tighter until, under the pressure of the big trial, the god just falls to pieces." "Many a man came off the course today abashed at problems he;d caused himself, overtraining his dog." Id. at 193.).