Monday, June 15, 2015

Questioning the Cult of Dog

So, there I was, reading our city's alternative news weekly. It's one of those publications that seldom has anything bad to say about dog or their owners. This despite the fact that Tucson frequently sounds like a 24-hour barking kennel.

Then there was this op-ed piece:

Tom has a thing for dog people, OK, crazy dog people, and it isn’t very positive

In one article, he takes on the "dogs everywhere" craze, which has led to dogs in grocery stores and other places where they don't belong, and fake service dogs.

Way to go, Tom!

2 comments:

  1. As always, the comments are pure gold:

    Next they will demand public dog restrooms.

    Ha! Your lawn is their restroom PEON.

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  2. from facebook: People Against Dog Breeding And Noise
    Go to the page to read the whole article, which is too long to be published here.

    People who have never suffered through extensive exposure to chronic barking often find it difficult to understand why it should be such an incredibly upsetting, debilitating ordeal. This section tells you why that is, beginning with a discussion of how our bodies react to exposure to chronic noise.
    The Physiology of the Upset Victim

    The Autonomic Nervous System & the Endocrine System
    The organs of the body that are beyond our conscious control, like those listed above, together with the nerve cells that connect them, are known as the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS).
    Notice that when you hear the sharp report of a barking dog, it gives you a start. Physically you feel yourself give a little jump and you experience a sudden sense of tension. That feeling is the autonomic nervous system speeding up the inner workings of your body. As the barking continues on, the neurons continue firing and you become increasingly tense.
    When a dog barks, he creates sound waves. Sound waves are real physical entities that have a real physical effect on our bodies. We can't see them, but they are there and they carry the output of the barking dog to the sensory hair cells of our ears, which then carry the report of the sound into our brains. The brain, in turn, stimulates the ANS, which makes us feel tense. it is the endocrine system that makes us feel anxious when we are in close proximity to a barking dog. That's not surprising really. The hormonal (endocrine) system is regulated by a primitive part of the human brain that seems to respond instantly to the primitive threats and messages of desperation that are implicit in the voice of a chronically barking dog. That's part of why barking drives people wild.
    To really appreciate the impact that chronic barking has on your autonomic and endocrine systems and, thus, your emotional state, you must also factor-in the length of time required for our bodies to return to normal after an acoustic shock like that which we receive when a nearby dog releases a loud, sudden, percussive burst of barking. If it happens only once, you may return to normal in a matter of seconds. However, with each additional episode of barking, your systems fire-up more quickly, and it takes a little longer to return to baseline. If it happens frequently enough, you will still be wound-up from the last outburst when the next one hits, with the result that you will be forever tense, and at no point will you ever be able to become truly relaxed in your own home.
    Some people have an autonomic nervous system that works like greased lightening, while others have a relatively sluggish function of the ANS. The more readily your ANS fires up, the faster your endocrine system will kick in, and the longer it will take your body to return to a relaxed state after you are exposed to a flurry of barking.
    barkingdogs.net

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