What I read
In the article
"Elderly dog helps save girl lost in Australian bush" (2018), we are told that police have honoured the loyalty of a rural Australian family's dog, whose eyesight and hearing are weak because of age, by making him an honorary police dog after he helped a lost child. We also learn that an expert on animal behaviour at Sydney University was not surprised to learn that Max, a 17-year-old cattle dog, had loyally stayed with three-year-old Aurora overnight when the girl got lost in bush on family property after walking away from the house. He explained that valuing human contact is a care value of dogs, especially when they are older.
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My response
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| My brother's fan club |
Before I got caught up with drugs and violence, I almost blogged this article on Wednesday evening. It is a more cheerful story, and I also like the way that Prof. McGreevy, the cited expert from Sydney University, says that dogs "value human contact," which reminded me of the idea of core identity in the first article we read in Skillful. It hadn't occurred to me before, but that comment by the professor made me realise that it isn't only human animals that have values, attitudes and behaviours. At least some other animals are also capable of the same sorts of things, and dogs are an obvious candidate for demonstrating such characteristics. I'm not sure that dogs spend time reflecting on their identity the way humans can, but they do have unique identities made up of different aspects, although I might not call them given, chosen and core identities that make up our own sense of being unique individuals.
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| Piled into the back of my brother's truck. |
Another reason I liked the story of the loyal Max was that it reminded me of my own family. On my recent visit over Songkran, my brother cooked a great lunch for us one day at his home, where I stay when I visit, and my mum and most of my sisters turned up with their kids or dogs. I don't remember them all (the dogs – I do remember by nieces and nephews), but there were about 15 dogs in varied sizes running around also enjoying themselves and each other.
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My question
Why do you think that many people like to keep dogs?
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Reference
What I read
At 113 words, my summary is a little long for such a short article, but it takes time to make it short, and I'm a bit pressed for time as I enjoy my morning coffee before a quick visit to AUA to pick up a book.
ReplyDeleteAnother advantage to choosing this article to blog is that my response is obviously nothing like an essay. Except that both are responses that came to my mind, there is not much in common between the topics or the ideas of the two paragraphs, which made it a useful example of what you can do in your response when you write your first blog post responding to something in the news on Monday.
Of course, I did think about introducing and concluding my response, but merely having an introduction and a conclusion does not make a piece of work an essay – J. K. Rowling also worried a lot about having a strong introduction and conclusion to her long piece of work, but I don't think anyone would confuse the story of Harry Potter with an essay.
And this reminds me that the reason our class typically finishes a few minutes late is not that people ask useful questions, for example, whether we should copy Dickens' style of writing in our academic work, but that we want a good conclusion to the day's class.
DeleteI like to have dogs around because they are very good friends and friendly. So think of them as my family.
ReplyDeleteGood thing to have dogs in our house because they always keep us company, watch or bark the streng people who try to get into our house.
But if we have dogs we have to feed them take care of them. So what I mean is we have to buy them food or sometime we have to buy clothes to wear for them if the place is cold weather and veterinary.
However most of the dogs are friendly to the human even if, some countries or some people like to eat them or not.
Thank you Ben. My family kept dogs in the past for work, but not any more. My youngest brother is the only with cattle these days, and he doesn't have dogs to help him on his farm. My mother and other family members keep dogs these days for the other reasons you mention,such as company. And one of my sisters does dote on hers, buying them comfy warm clothes for winter and so on. They are all well fed and cared for.
DeleteI thought the reference to eating dogs was also interesting, and connects with an idea in my later blog post about the very old man who wants to be killed. Perhaps one of your classmates will follow the issue of eating dogs, which remains popular (how popular?) in the north of Thailand. Whenever I visit a friend in Chiangrai, he is keen to get some dog for a special meal.
I think dog care service is become more big industry right now. We can raise our dog as we can afford. For instance, there are different prices of dog food, fashion products even dog spa.
DeleteI just watched documentary from VICE Reports on Youtube. In China, dinning dog is a very huge industry. I cannot imagine that they eat dog for survive. It looks like the same as you walk through Klong Teoy Market to buy pork. You can see many pork was hanged around the pork shop. But, it is dog meat. I shocked to see that scene.
They believe that eating dog is the same you eat other animal. They do not believe that dog is a pet.
Therefore, Some people keep dogs. Some people does not.
Nowadays, young generation prefer to have few children or no children. Dogs is the first choice that people consider to keep them. Keeping dogs will help them to fulfill their lives.
ReplyDeleteIt is also interesting to discuss about how people choose their dogs. From my experience, most people tend to choose their dogs based on their identity. It is clear that owner is completely related to their dogs in some ways.