Man's Best, And Man's Best Friend

by Jonah Goldberg - August 24th, 2007 - Townhall.com

What we see most clearly in dogs are precisely the things we as human beings wish to see in ourselves: loyalty, joy, love, home, family, commitment, humor and an utter disregard for the pieties and pretenses of fashionable life. ("If you take a dog which is starving and feed him and make him prosperous," Mark Twain observed, "that dog will not bite you. This is the primary difference between a dog and a man.") My dog cares not that he is beautiful, that he is rich, that he is prized. All he cares about is that he is loved and that he has someone to love back.

This is very good Jonah. I don't think anyone has ever done a better job of summing up why dogs have for so long been considered man(kind)'s best friend. Those who can love a dog are people that you want to keep around you. [Those who love cats are people who are attracted to animals that will tolerate you loving them, but don't give it back except in small measure. It is love that is conditional.] Unconditional love is the love that allows for dogs to be abused in the way Michael Vick and others abuse them.

The two types of people who love dogs are those who give love the same way as a dog, unconditionally, and those who take unconditional love but don't return it. Michael Vick is the second kind. He is sick as are all who take unconditional love and use it to control their dogs rather than return it. That kind of love turns dogs, and people, into animals who will fight to the death for their master without realizing that the love they seek will never be returned.

What alienates society is using the love of a dog to turn him into a fighter for a master who is clearly not returning that love. Killing that animal for failing to be a good fighter, especially the brutal killings done here, proves beyond all doubt the selfishness and vidictiveness of the person.

There is a lot of discussion of about whether our society will forgive Michael Vick. I have a better question. Who thinks that Michael Vick will ever change from the selfish narcissistic animal who abuses a dog's love in this way? Apologizing is not enough. He must change. I have my doubts dog abusers can change.