Dogs I've known

[DudiousMax at aol.com]

Yo,
          Right on, Right on!  Dogs invent games.  An innocent stick in the 
park can become, at a moment's notice, the stick of sticks; and a pack of 
dogs will vie for top dog acknowledgement by virtue of who can keep the stick 
the longest.  And just as suddenly, all will become disiniterested.  And a 
new game will spontaneously arise.  Dogs are playful, and display 
joyfulness-- like running into large puddles to splash, and then making 
circles running in and out of the puddles to experience the splash 
repeatedly.  In such ways they endear themselves to me, as I remember doing 
the same thing as a toddler.  And a dog I owned nearly hung herself to death 
by attempting to jump off a porch though being on a leash.  She was little 
more than a puppy, coming into heat for the first time, but willing to die 
for love.  I was luckily able to rescue her before any damage was done.  She 
got to be about 14 years old.  So, to my experience, dogs can be wily 
gameplayers, prideful alpha dogs, joyful splashers, and "romantic lovers."  
They are capable of long term relationships.  They have ability to think with 
some degree of abstraction.  They can solve some relatively complex problems. 
 They are in many ways like us.  They are more than a furry data point of 
stimuli and responses.
     Still, what TRP does with this, and why, is anybody's guess.  I'll offer 
none.  I really can't see the why of it, yet.  We do know that nearly 
everything in the text has some purpose.  TRP is nothing if not deliberate. 
As has been noted, Desmond plays some sort of role in VL, likewise the 
talking dog in M&D.  Wha?
                                                      Max