‘Dog-Owning Has Had Its Day’

Addressing McCarthy’s “dogolatry”--who speaks for seeing-eye dogs? For canines who are trained to become ears of the hearing impaired? Companion dogs that bond to the institutionalized elderly and infirm? The K-9 corps, an extension of the military, the bomb and narcotic divisions of the police and border patrol? Who speaks for the obedience-trained dog that affords both pride and pleasure in the dual relationship?

If the author’s logic persists in phasing out dogs in order to “benefit” them, what does he propose to fill the millions of cages for our inhumane vivisectionists who subsist and thrive on grants while performing oxymoronic experimentation that computer studies readily duplicate?

Has this columnist also documented in tons and liters the body wastes of his primal ancestors who slugged along in the slime, bent and hairy, swinging from trees with “numbed-out brains” until evolution brought the indoor toilet for their (and his) disposal problem?

Finally, if my golden retriever, Gideon, exists solely to “fetch with his mind gone,” and that I am this loyal, gentle and beautiful animal’s “worst friend,” then McCarthy better hasten to enrich his life with a similar life companion before he returns to the nascent ooze wherein his flawed logic spawns “numbed-out” and compassionless.

BAYLA WINTERS

Burbank