Planet of the Dogs

I have a theory about dogs. They are on the verge of colonising us. Planet of the Apes? Stuff and nonsense. It will never happen. Apes are too like us and know better than to get too close. Generally they avoid us like the plague. They know a winning competitor when they see one.

But dogs? Man’s best friends, are they not? The second most successful species on earth. Dogs have evolved from into a species that first wheedled their way into our confidence by being prepared to bite our enemies. Since then, those with the gooiest faces and most ingratiating personalities have steadily worked their way into our homes and hearths.

And look now. They get free food, and healthcare humans would die for. They behave disgracefully in public – barking incessantly, eating tennis balls, sniffing at other dogs’ naughty bits, relieving themselves at lampposts and getting intimate with the legs of visiting vicars and maiden aunts.  Their owners excuse them on the grounds that they are only dogs, yet still they treat then as humans.

Every second post on Facebook contains a dog with an expression deliberately calculated to make a million people say aaah. For goodness sake, there are even humans who masquerade as dogs in their Facebook profiles.

People claim that dogs can read their minds, can tell when they’re ill. That they can sniff out drugs and explosives. And yes, they can do all those things and more.  There’s a reason for this, about which more later.

You might think that success of dogs as a species is down to evolution. For consider the wolf. Now there’s a species that didn’t get it, and paid the price – like the Neanderthal. Wolves are seriously nasty to humans, and look what happened to them. Marginalised, endangered, demonised in the movies. For every dance with wolves there are a hundred werewolves lurking in the dark. For every David Attenborough marvelling at their hunting skills there are a hundred Hollywood scriptwriters thinking of horrible ways in which wolves can menace us.

But evolution does not fully explain how, for all of recorded time, dogs have engaged us, seduced us and twisted us to their wills. Why does an inadequate psycho need to bulk up in the gym when they can have a couple of pit bulls straining at the leash? When you face down a dog, or heaven forbid, give it a kick, it goes all submissive and makes pathetic yowling sounds specifically intended to make us feel guilty for our wanton aggression. And what other animal has old ladies following them in the park with little bags, ready to pick up their poo whenever they condescend to produce some?

No, dogs have the power, and they know it. Look how those appealing little beagles smoking twenty a day in the animal labs managed to launch the animal rights movement. That was only the beginning. They have made pariahs out of countries that have the temerity to allow their people to serve them up in a nice stir fry. It was Checkers, Richard Nixon’s dog, who got future president off the hook when he was facing charges of financial impropriety. Nixon then repaid him by becoming a dog of a president. Since then, no self-respecting president has failed to employ a dog on his staff – the gooier the better.

Surely the strongest evidence lies in the way people end up looking like their dogs. Not an accident, I suggest. No, the subtle power of influence and suggestion.

Search the internet, and you will find countless sites claiming that our leaders are lizards in barely disguised human form. Rubbish. They’re dogs. Ancient astronomers knew this. Why otherwise did they name a constellation Canis Major, and Sirius the Dog Star? They knew precisely who dogs were, and where they came from.

And since then our doggie leaders have practiced the canine dark arts. Why otherwise do we elect politicians like Barack Obama, Mitt Romney (God help us) and David Cameron? Sleek, ingratiating, good looking. Notice that bald politicians never make it to the top. Why? Well, who would keep a bald dog? And how many politicians, when they become top dogs, go feral? Think of Gaddaffi, Hitler and Saddam, surrounded by ferocious subordinates who displayed classic pack dog characteristics, turning from one unfortunate victim to another, forever looking for an enemy, and deliberately kept hungry and fierce by the top dog.

Why do we have so many phrases – not just in English – that refer to dogs in denigrating terms, and particularly the female of the species? It’s because of our fear of the powerful.

Make no mistake, my friends, the time is close when the dog will reveal himself as the master species. I have no idea whether some alien visitors fused canine DNA with our own to produce this extraordinary event, or our leaders turned into dogs by some other means. But for millennia, dogs have been softening us up, entering our heads, quietly preparing for the moment. They even used George Orwell to put us off the scent. It wasn’t the much-maligned pigs that ended up ruling Animal Farm, it was dogs!

When that moment comes, dog-like humans and human-like dogs will come together, and the true nature of humanity will be revealed.

And with that I will woof goodbye. Breakfast is waiting….