“But that’s not who we are!”

Multiplication of identities begets a continuous contest for superiority, which begets adjectives. Best and worst go together like “soup and sandwich” in the old jingle – “You can’t have one without the UHHH-ther.”

Kind of rich when you consider that humans’ secret weapon, the reason they triumphed over all those prettier species, is what undoes them in the end: their ace in the hole, you might say, became their pain in the ass. Intellect devises its own demise. We dogs don’t know from adjectives: every rectum we sniff is descriptive, none pejorative. We do, we don’t outdo. If we resort to violence, it’s for some sane purpose, to eat, say, or propagate our ilk. Humans slaughter multitudes over choices of decor: whether to fix a cross, crescent or star over their door. I mean, really!

You’ll never catch a dog arguing “that’s not who we are!” How can we be? The concept is loony-tunes. If I am not I, who am I? Hamlet cops this plea after killing Laertes’ sister and dad:

Dopey Laertes’ head must have been spinning – he was pretty sore already. Did you do it, fella, or didn’t you, enough of this evil-twin nonsense!

The we in “not who we are” is understood to be the American people. Nations – and nationalities – are another human idea, as if a mark on a map describes the denizens on either side. Just think: if a Niagara Falls pooch swims across the river, it’s transformed, abracadabra, from American to Canadian!

The protestant in the foregoing protest (who, I regret to report, was Carll himself) was referencing his tribe’s current contest for Big Dog. Evidently the behavior of the opposing party displeases Carll. He disowns them. He’s persuaded that he and his fellow partisans, notwithstanding any superficial resemblance, belong to a different breed, nobler and superior. So what if their rectums smell alike, if in all discernible aspects they’re identical, these combatants are essentially, irreconcilably, even existentially distinct and must distrust and abhor one another for ever and ever. Carll can’t imagine living in America if the other team wins. I kid you not.

How, you might ask, can a dominant species be so dumb? Why not just come together and do what’s best for most (saving billions in election costs, by the by, for better purchases – dog treats, say). Why this tsuris, these nightmares, all this pain?

I think I’ve mentioned elsewhere humanity’s a mistake. The Almighty, like many another author working on his masterpiece, meandered into a bad patch, which He inadvertently published. The Bible depicts God admiring His production on Creation’s first five days, “It was good,” and on the sixth, when He made Man, “It was very good.” Many of us have felt this way in the first flush, only to wake to an actuality that appalls: “I made that?!” If God would only confess to being fallible, I might cut Him some slack on His goof – He made dogs, after all – but this insistence on His perfection sticks in my craw.

I pity poor Carll his anguish about his species: Jane too is in a tizzy. I attempt to console them by licking, pawing, furry cuddling, playing fetch, but it’s not enough.