“It’s so important not to anthropomorphise,” I said to my partner while picking dry clinkers out of Bonnie’s arse-hair with a warm, soapy flannel. “Dogs are not children; they are chronically disabled, half blind, armless, deaf, mute, manic-depressive dwarfs with wolverine tendencies, and should be treated as such. Now fix me a bloody mary and pass the claw clippers, I’m on a roll.” The dog looked on sardonically, a knowing smile playing across her lips.  

Having now spent five months studying at the University of Dog, I can state with confidence that they’re nothing like humans – nobody I’ve ever met laps their drink from a bowl. And that boundless, panting enthusiasm for my very presence! Not one homo sapien out of the thousands I’ve known has been as attuned to my manifold charms, animal magnetism and inner beauty…these are indeed creatures of high intelligence. Sure, it’s intelligence, Jim, but not as we know it. Dogs live in the here and now, whereas us big-brained apes live anywhere but. Result: they will run in front of oncoming traffic for the sake of an interesting smell; we will commit genocide for the sake of a false premise. They are our equals, if not our superiors, and have much doggy wisdom to impart. Stuff like every dog has his day, let sleeping dogs lie, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, there’s life in the old dog yet, it shouldn’t happen to a dog, it’s a dog’s life…I think it’s time for a hair of the dog pick-me-up, the sun’s over the yardarm…

Of course in the end we’re both warm-blooded mammals with 95% of DNA in common, so our similarities outweigh our differences, the most immediately conspicuous being our shared propensity to screw up. Must fly, I’ve got to see a man about a dog…