Dog and Man : It’s like trying to figure out who to cheer for, the lion or the gladiator.

It has not been the best of times for dogs.

They have been banned from parks, restrained from barking, accused of murder, eaten by immigrants and sold to research laboratories for experimentation.

Cats are a little smarter and a lot quicker, so they have not had quite the same problem as your average stupid dog.

A cat, were it inclined toward violence, for instance, would leap from a tree onto the head of a non-uniformed passer-by and be gone in an instant.

A dog, on the other hand, will attack a fully armed policeman, then hang around and wait for the SWAT team to arrive.

My own dog Hoover is just such an animal, though, fortunately, he lacks the wit and courage to be dangerous. I do most of the barking and attacking in our neighborhood.

I write about dogs today because I was out with the animal activists last week, namely a group that calls itself Last Chance for Animals.

They were a scruffy bunch gathered before a Sun Valley kennel in a scene vaguely reminiscent of the 1960s, though lacking the quality of cause that motivated people 25 years ago.

Members of Last Chance had been staking out a particular kennel for three days, 24 hours a day, believing that its owner was picking up dogs on the pretense of finding good homes for them, and then selling the dogs to research labs.

A research lab, the activists were naturally claiming, is not a good home for a dog.

I went out there because a reporter told me the controversy was heating up.

He said there were often loud arguments and sometimes even fistfights between those who love dogs and those who, we must presume, do not love dogs.

I was sure this was true. Activists are excessively emotional people. Whenever I make fun of animals, the activists foam at the mouth while screaming invectives at me.

Last year, when I wrote about a cookbook being circulated among the Vietnamese on how to cook dog, a person I assumed was an activist dialed my number and howled into the phone.

I say assumed because you can never be sure. My wife suggested it could have been a werewolf, but werewolves don’t telephone, they leap from misty forests.

Some of you may have seen a hairy, growling person who wanders Topanga Canyon, but he is not a werewolf, he is only a middle-aged hippie lost in time.

When I got to where the Last Chancers were protesting, I naturally started asking questions, because that’s what we do. If journalists do not ask questions, there is absolutely no reason to have them around.

This apparently offended one activist, who made a grab for my notebook because he felt I was talking to the wrong person. Grabbing at my notebook is not the wisest thing to do because, unlike Hoover, I bite.

I told him that in so many words and then went inside the kennel to see if they were indeed collecting dogs under false pretenses and selling them to laboratories, a practice of which I was rapidly beginning to approve.

The lady who worked at the kennel was angry because activists were swarming all over the place, frightening her 4-year-old daughter and scaring hell out of her too.

She first became aware of their 24-hour vigil, she said, when she heard talking in front of the building and looked out a window to find an activist pressed up against the glass, staring back.

Many zealots have crazy eyes, and it’s understandable that the lady might have been taken aback, if not terrified. She called the police, who informed her it was not a crime to either picket on the public streets or to have crazy eyes.

I asked if her boss, the owner of the place, was gathering animals under false pretenses and selling them to labs, and she said not that she knew of, which is what I expected her to say.

Then she showed me through the kennel where 17 dogs all barked at once, and a few of the 15 cats joined in by meowing. Six rabbits made no noise at all. Rabbits spend most of their time eating and fornicating, which keeps them out of a lot of trouble.

That might be something for all of us to think about.

I came away feeling sorry for the animals but devoid of sympathy toward the activists.

No living creature ought to suffer pain for the questionable benefits derived from experimentation, but, then again, no living creature ought to be subjected to the excesses of crazy-eyed zealots.

It’s like trying to figure out who to cheer for, the lion or the gladiator, although a lion has a lot better chance with a gladiator than a dog with a scientist.

The best we can do, I suppose, is figure out a way to minimize conflict. I have a modest suggestion.

Perhaps some of the activists would be willing to take the place of those animals destined for the labs.

By volunteering, they would simultaneously save the dogs, advance science and eliminate the profit motive from the entire process.

Better yet, they would be assured martyrdom without ever having to bite a policeman.