I have a darling friend who has a darling car that sports a darling bumper sticker DOG IS MY COPILOT.
It makes so much sense. I mean you befriend and feed and house a puppy, who will grow up to be a dog–loving and faithful– to help you safely navigate your way through modern-day life’s singular peculiarities. ‘Specially if you’re driving a 2015 Toyota Prius Hatchback on Kauai.
Grown up and seated beside you in the bucket front seat, with eyes searching the road as you travel, she’s happily checking out the scene . It’s getting dark. The sun sets early. You’re stuck in traffic. It’s a four lane strip and a guy, in a goofy big-wheeled rig that looks like its slumped through too many muddy cane fields to harvest too much illegal ganja, gives you the eye. The guy has dingy greasy-blonde hair. He’s as fat and sloppy as his Kauai muddy red-bottomed pick-up and snorting a joint and slurping a beer. Takes talent. Both hands are busy. Guess he’s steering with his knees. He likes your looks. He likes your car. He doesn’t like your copilot who sticks her shaggy wolf gray head out the window–which you’ve power rolled down allowing Verdi’s Triumphal March from Aida from your CD player to drown his heavy, harsh, and savage Home is Where the Hatred Is–and bares teeth that look long and sharp enough to do in at least one of those ridiculous over-size tires with the first bite. She has better taste then to bite this bugger in the butt.
You pull ahead. He falls behind. You wave and roll up your power window.
The point is: if God were seated in the bucket seat your buddy in the dirty rig couldn’t see Him–why is He always a He– I seriously doubt your most fervent prayers would save the day. Or the night. Or you or your Prius or even Verdi.
Don’t you just love The Triumphal March?
The domestic dog has the distinction of being the only known animal to be domesticated by humans prior to the advent of agriculture. Dogs are not only man’s best friend, but also his oldest one. Though the precise origin of dogs was a mystery in Darwin’s day, Darwin drew on them as an example of artificial selection that would be familiar to his readers, since the practice of shaping breeds over time was familiar to his audience.
Every dog today–mastiff or mini, pointy nosed or baby- faced, long-haired or short, floppy ears or perked, is related to the wolf and new breeds are still cropping up. Don’t you just love it? The mini-husky is the latest new breed of artificially selected dog worked up by an Alaskan native from 1970-1988 before it became a breed of its own. It has been considered an official breed by the UKC since 1997.
Everybody needs this kind of coexistence. ‘Specially if you drive a Prius on Kauai.
May dog be with you in 2016.
bettejo 
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