My Official Position On Dogs For Anyone Curious

(Before I get into this, I should note that none of my friends [at least the ones on Twitter] are people who I consider poor dog owners. They all give their dogs a decent amount of care and attention, and I consider them responsible by any metrics I care to use.)

We humans have changed our environment to the point where we frequently find that the habits and desires of our bodies do not dovetail well with our surroundings. IE, we get fat, depressed, etc, due to a lack of the stimulation that existed in the environments we evolved in/were created for. It takes a significant amount of work to overcome this difference and bring us back to a healthy, happy state. 

The same is true for many breeds of dog. They are ill equipped to deal with a static urban environment (a backyard and/or house) without a good deal of work to meet the demands of their mind and body.  Most dogs were bred with the intent of being work animals; either hunting, guarding, shepherding, etc. This work usually occurred in areas where there was a lot of open space, and required the expenditure of a lot of energy. Dogs living in urban areas are frequently fenced in and ignored, cannot expend their energy, and often become bored, aggressive and most likely miserable, much like a human without exercise and mental stimulation can become irritable and depressive. 

It takes a lot of work and dedication on the part of an owner or owners to overcome this disconnect between the dog's body and environment, just as it is required to remedy our own disconnect, and it has been my experience that a lot of dog owners are either unaware of the needs of their dogs, or don't want to put forth the effort required to maintain a healthy, happy animal companion. So their dogs become a public nuisance (excessive barking, undue aggression towards people and other dogs, etc). To add insult to injury, their owners frequently appear to become inured to the symptoms of their dog's maladjustment, and the problem remains untreated.

Due to the number of irresponsible dog owners out there, I wouldn't mind seeing dog ownership become more heavily regulated. Raising a neglected, bored, aggressive animal does neither man nor beast any favors. But I doubt that this would happen in a million years. 

(Should anyone run across this outside of the context of twitter, I have been complaining a lot about neighborhood dogs that are behaving badly, and I wanted to discuss the general topic in more than 140 characters, and to make sure that people don't think that I'm making passive-aggressive comments about their own pets. )  

Comments positive or negative welcome.