A worrying tale of anthropomorphism chasing its tail
Ireland is a country that has official signs up on every other lamp post warning you that if your dog empties his ‘bag’, as ‘de brudder’ might say, you’ll be issued with an on-the-spot fine of €150.
But how does ‘officialdom’ know that your turd factory has dumped its payload on the footpath? Are there officials in peaked caps hiding in the shrubbery waiting – ticket book in hand – to pounce on unsuspecting dogs in flagrante.
Laughable, you might think, in a country where pampered, suburban turd factories have their own bakeries, where dog boutiques turn out young pups better clad than humans, where your average local vet is better equipped than the Mayo Clinic, and where pet insurance is a routine expenditure.
Whatever officialdom is doing, it’s not working because I am sick to the soles of my shoes river dancing around malodourous mounds. Suburban walks have become obstacle courses of stinking mire. Look, even if all the purveyors of dog turds cleaned up after themselves it does not make my walk any more agreeable. Those doting owners who do the stomach churning, good deed inexplicably place the turd in a transparent plastic bag and proudly swing it to the rhythm of their steps.
I can’t walk behind these pendulous turds. I can’t breathe in without wanting to vomit. I pass the oscillating abominations as quickly as I can and try to erase the offending image from my mind. And there’s worse. I have seen mammies and daddies with turd bags swinging from the bars of the buggy. Some upstanding citizens, having gone to the trouble of bagging it – incongruously hang the bags on branches, like some sick Christmas tree joke.
Is there no escape for an ordinary non-dog-owner who just wants to take a quiet walk after the dinner? Apparently not; and now the problem is following me into the supermarket where I fear to venture without my spectacles. Otherwise I may very easily arrive home with a car full of attractively packaged dog biscuits, dog yoghurts, dog shampoo and dog toothpaste. Jesus! These products need to be alarmed, warning that they are of the canine variety. I’m telling you; if the World Health Organisation was to analyse the ingredients in modern dog food - they would probably conclude that dogs in 2016 eat better than the average Irish person did in the 1970’s.
Having been fast-tracked up the evolutionary ladder Irish woofters are enjoying unprecedented levels of care. The lifestyle, for example, of your ordinary Dublin mutt rivals that of your average courtier at Versailles during the reign of the Sun King. When you bring your newborn little turd factory home you can enroll it in ‘puppy training school’ to follow a curriculum that will prepare it for the social whirl that is South County Dublin suburban living.
This will involve regular trips to dog grooming parlours, which are more sophisticated than any hairdressers I went to in the 1980’s. Yes folks, there are turd factories be-fouling the footpaths of my neighbourhood who have had more pedicures than the entire Kardashian family. Many well-quaffed poops will also have their likeness from a photograph painted professionally – something most humans will never have done.
Alienated bowwows can then lie on a sofa and bark out all of their frustrations to the dog psychologist or learn how to be socially well adjusted from a dog behaviourist, dog whisperer, or whatever the hell they are called. A futile endeavour though if you have farming kin. After being mauled to death by its unschooled and un-quaffed country cousin, a South County Dublin dog will arrive home from its summer holidays in a shoebox spattered with cow dung for poetic justice. Its owners though, attentive to the last, will have it interred in the pet cemetery in a grave that might rival Napoleon’s tomb.
The following shocking, ‘first world’ concern recently appeared on a dog food manufacturer’s web site, “I have read that fats from restaurants and left overs from slaughter houses go into dog foods.” No! I thought. This ‘concerned’ person has obviously never entertained a spice burger or a battered sausage and doesn’t appreciate that dogs in 2015 eat better than the average Irish person did in the 1970’s.
Anyway, if The Department of ‘Edumacation’ dumbs down the school curriculum any further, it won’t be a case of courses for horses but courses for dogs, except it’s the dogs that will be giving the courses – doggedly dotting every t and crossing every i because us humans will be barking mad.
Copyright Berni Dwan 2014, 2015
Ireland is a country that has official signs up on every other lamp post warning you that if your dog empties his ‘bag’, as ‘de brudder’ might say, you’ll be issued with an on-the-spot fine of €150.
But how does ‘officialdom’ know that your turd factory has dumped its payload on the footpath? Are there officials in peaked caps hiding in the shrubbery waiting – ticket book in hand – to pounce on unsuspecting dogs in flagrante.
Laughable, you might think, in a country where pampered, suburban turd factories have their own bakeries, where dog boutiques turn out young pups better clad than humans, where your average local vet is better equipped than the Mayo Clinic, and where pet insurance is a routine expenditure.
Whatever officialdom is doing, it’s not working because I am sick to the soles of my shoes river dancing around malodourous mounds. Suburban walks have become obstacle courses of stinking mire. Look, even if all the purveyors of dog turds cleaned up after themselves it does not make my walk any more agreeable. Those doting owners who do the stomach churning, good deed inexplicably place the turd in a transparent plastic bag and proudly swing it to the rhythm of their steps.
I can’t walk behind these pendulous turds. I can’t breathe in without wanting to vomit. I pass the oscillating abominations as quickly as I can and try to erase the offending image from my mind. And there’s worse. I have seen mammies and daddies with turd bags swinging from the bars of the buggy. Some upstanding citizens, having gone to the trouble of bagging it – incongruously hang the bags on branches, like some sick Christmas tree joke.
Is there no escape for an ordinary non-dog-owner who just wants to take a quiet walk after the dinner? Apparently not; and now the problem is following me into the supermarket where I fear to venture without my spectacles. Otherwise I may very easily arrive home with a car full of attractively packaged dog biscuits, dog yoghurts, dog shampoo and dog toothpaste. Jesus! These products need to be alarmed, warning that they are of the canine variety. I’m telling you; if the World Health Organisation was to analyse the ingredients in modern dog food - they would probably conclude that dogs in 2016 eat better than the average Irish person did in the 1970’s.
Having been fast-tracked up the evolutionary ladder Irish woofters are enjoying unprecedented levels of care. The lifestyle, for example, of your ordinary Dublin mutt rivals that of your average courtier at Versailles during the reign of the Sun King. When you bring your newborn little turd factory home you can enroll it in ‘puppy training school’ to follow a curriculum that will prepare it for the social whirl that is South County Dublin suburban living.
This will involve regular trips to dog grooming parlours, which are more sophisticated than any hairdressers I went to in the 1980’s. Yes folks, there are turd factories be-fouling the footpaths of my neighbourhood who have had more pedicures than the entire Kardashian family. Many well-quaffed poops will also have their likeness from a photograph painted professionally – something most humans will never have done.
Alienated bowwows can then lie on a sofa and bark out all of their frustrations to the dog psychologist or learn how to be socially well adjusted from a dog behaviourist, dog whisperer, or whatever the hell they are called. A futile endeavour though if you have farming kin. After being mauled to death by its unschooled and un-quaffed country cousin, a South County Dublin dog will arrive home from its summer holidays in a shoebox spattered with cow dung for poetic justice. Its owners though, attentive to the last, will have it interred in the pet cemetery in a grave that might rival Napoleon’s tomb.
The following shocking, ‘first world’ concern recently appeared on a dog food manufacturer’s web site, “I have read that fats from restaurants and left overs from slaughter houses go into dog foods.” No! I thought. This ‘concerned’ person has obviously never entertained a spice burger or a battered sausage and doesn’t appreciate that dogs in 2015 eat better than the average Irish person did in the 1970’s.
Anyway, if The Department of ‘Edumacation’ dumbs down the school curriculum any further, it won’t be a case of courses for horses but courses for dogs, except it’s the dogs that will be giving the courses – doggedly dotting every t and crossing every i because us humans will be barking mad.
Copyright Berni Dwan 2014, 2015
