Some kind of ‘doing it Doggy Style’ joke would be a bit crass here, right?

Dog Love by Boris reproduced under a creative commons license.

Right, those of you following me on twitter will have an idea of this already. But I wanna expand my thoughts, and I ain’t been on here in a while, so it seemed only rightly that I follow this thought process out loud for a wee spot.

So let’s go.

So I saw an advert this morning.

I can’t find it online (I didn’t look too hard) but if you’re in the ‘You ‘kay?’ you may spot it. It’s for Cesar brand dog food and the basic gist is a load of shots of dogs looking cutely at their owners (or whatever) with a voiceover telling you it’s not….

Scratch that, I found it, because I wanted to be a little bit more accurate:

Right.

So basically, we’re told that we should buy the dog food, to show that we love it just as much as it loves us.

Now. I’m sure you can imagine my first reaction. It’s the reaction I’m looking for when I watch telly in the morning, as it’s the reaction that starts to wake me up and get my brain working.

Anger.

Anger at bullshit. (Which is why I watch the Wright Stuff every morning before work…it wakes me up big style).

Anyway,

Clearly dogs follow us around and get our paper and hide from the rain (wait..what?) not because they love us, but because we give them food.

There’s something quite sweetly off base about saying that we give them food to show our love, because it’s the only reason they follow us around. It’s that natural pack instinct to socialise in a group that will help you feed. That’s why dog’s bond to people. Most of the dog owners I know acknowledge this…and doing dog sitting works the same way, you become a recognisable part of the pack (and need to establish yourself as alpha or the dog will ignore you) and then it will treat you in the same way it’s primary owner does.

Then it hit me.

So it is love then.

Not to get too cynical here, but basically, yeah.

We search for a useful pack. Friendships are good, but you really need a tight knit pack, and that’s why we fall in love with people who can provide and protect.

And I don’t want no gender bullshit in there, the fact is that both sides of the partnership provide and protect, in cisheteronormative straight relationships, sure that divide normally goes a certain way, but it’s still different kinds of protection and provision.

So you buy each other treats to confirm this bond, maybe even sex it up a little to really cement it.

And it’s just these pack instincts, these simple drives that we’ve developed into complex social codes and systems.

Funny how often I forget that one.

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I’m stopping now because my rambling is terrible, sorry it’s been so long since I’ve written, not sorry for you (well, I am that too..but) sorry for me…because I appear to have forgotten how to do this properly.

Fucksticks.

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