Dogspotting

A favourite hobby of mine, on the street or from a car, is dogspotting. I would define this activity as: "looking at dogs in an admiring way." Distinctive traits, signs of personality I enjoy include: apple-domed skulls, waggity tails, lolling tongues, dopey eyes, map-like fur patterns, blenheim colouring, oversized pupils and a graceful gait. I also like the diversity of canine shapes, from the pony-like Borzoi to to the weiner-like weiner dog.

Franz Kafka observed: "All knowledge, the totality of all questions and all answers is contained in the dog." In the future I would like to expand on this insight by writing a book called Canis Numinous: The Mysticism of the Dog. It would contain aphorisms, anecdotes, kōans and parables pertaining to the mystical significance of the dog from prehistory to the present. It would also contain photos, because dogs are a visual phenomenon too. Hence the pleasure derived from dogspotting.

I like dogs because they combine the individuality of man with the purity of intention of animals - or at least have enough evolutionary quirks to create the illusion of such. I've never met a hypocritical dog, a backstabbing dog, a two-faced dog or a dog who kills in the name of an ideal. There has never been a canine Eichmann or a canine Judas, and even Hitler's poor dog, whom he poisoned in the bunker, could not have known the evil all around her. They may roll around in feces when their owner isn't looking, but even then, the dog's aura is clean.

Of course, vicious dogs do exist; but there is no inherent duplicity to their viciousness, even when the consequences are horrific. They are what they are bred to be. It was man who created the pit bull, man who molded the beast for his own intentions. If trained for violence, a dog will dumbly look to its master for approval after the fact. It does not kill for pleasure, it kills for a purpose: and if this purpose is warped, it is because somebody warped it. They are animals when they commit evil as surely as they are animals when they commit good.

Dogs cannot transcend their bestial natures, but they can sometimes help people transcend theirs. In the Mexican film Amores Perres (Love is for the Dogs), a character who achieves redemption with the help of his Rottweiler observes: "Masters take after their dogs." His dog causes him to spare a life, and there are surely far more lives dogs have saved by example than lives they have taken by malice. If this is a calculation one must take by faith, then I will take it by faith.

We must not falsely humanize dogs (that does not mean being inhumane), and we certainly should not infantilize them: to dress them in sweaters and bows and stuff them in handbags. Dogs are animals, proud if sublimely ridiculous animals, and should not be reduced to the status of benevolent dwarves, "little people," substitute children or interactive toys. They don't need spas, gourmet food or nannies. They need rough play, treats earned through tricks and packmates.

Without a respect for canine dignity dogspotting degenerates into a diminutive form of people-spotting: entering the realm of fashion police, celebrity gossip, exclusive video footage and the reductionist gaze of Big Sister. You don't need magazines or cameras to capture canines in their natural habitat, you simply need eyes and a heart. I like to keep my dogspotting as simple as its subjects: seek, spot, smile and salute. Silently I say, Walk on noble beasts, walk on.