With Shark Week wrapping up, the fam and I, avid Shark Week enthusiasts, have been engaging in some pretty deep conversations about animals, wild and domestic. At one point, dog racing came up. Videos were summoned. Awe was expressed. “They’re so dang fast!” our 13-year-old said. Then my wife pulled back.
“If dog racing is anything like horse racing,” she said, “I don’t know if I’m fully on board with it.”
The sticking point: “Loser” horses are often killed. Does the same thing happen to “loser” dogs?
The thought was enough for us to shelve the dog-racing videos and swear off the “sport” permanently. Horses are great — and so are cats and turtles and every other domesticated creature — but dogs? Come on. They’re walking, barking, licking, playing, pooping angels come to save us from our ignorance and stupidity. And self-centeredness. Dogs are the best of us. We simply do not deserve them. I love my wife, I love my child, I love my mom and pizza and sleeping in, but my love for my 4-year-old mini-Aussie Comet is the purest form of love I’ve ever experienced. When she dies, she will take what’s left of my ragged soul with her. Forever.
Loving a dog, or any pet really, allows us to give ourselves 100% to another being. There’s no fear of rejection, no judgment, just pure, unadulterated love, mostly in the form of giving: giving hugs, giving pets, giving kisses, giving play, giving time. Pet-love is the most perfect kind of love because it is unconditional both ways. That our good boys and good girls don’t live as long as we do on average is a cruel cosmic joke. Not enough time with them is apparently the price we pay for perfection, the price we pay for our too-short time with love perfected.
A quick Google search reveals that dog racing is slowly dying out across the country. Good. Let’s celebrate pets just being pets and animals just being themselves. Enter: our third annual Creature Comforts issue. On pg. 6, we dive deep into the Fort Worth Zoo’s gharial conversation efforts, while pg. 24 involves regular contributor and local musician Steve Steward trying to answer the question: Do animals dig live music? Pg. 27 is an exploratory feature on pet amenities at local apartment complexes, and on pg. 14, we remember some of the animals we’ve loved and lost over the past year. All that and more inside, so come on in. Pets welcome. — Anthony Mariani, Editor
