Canis lupus hominis

Several years ago, I was looking for reading material at the beach. When you go on a week long family vacation to the subtropics of North Carolina, you need something to read. It was the summer before I went to grad school, so I was reading several social histories that probably would be too boring for me  to recommend as casual reading.

But as you know, I am a dog person, and I was quite excited to come across this book. It was called A Dog’s History of America by Mark Derr. I was expecting something like the anecdotes about historical figures that I found in Stanley Coren’s Why We Love the Dogs We Do. I was actually pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t that sort of book at all. It was a social history– a structural analysis of dogs and their place in the American story.

Now, I should let my biases out there. I am a structuralist. Yep. I’ve always been. It’s just the way my brain works. I am very good at seeing the big picture. I’m very much the Hedgehog. (One of my professors in undergrad thought I was a Fox, but I am not. I might have some aspects of the fox, but I have always been a Hedgehog.)

The book takes us from arrival of the first dogs into this continent from Asia through the conquest by Europeans, the Revolution, the Civil War,  Reconstruction, and the events of the twentieth century, including things that have happened as a result of the War on Terror paradigm of the past few years.

The main thesis is this: We’ve treated dogs like hell. It doesn’t matter what era we’re in.  Someone has an insane idea about how to use dogs. Run them on turnspit wheels. Hot coals are a great motivator if they get too slow! That’s fine. Fight ’em.  Capital idea! Round up all the strays and drown them. Great idea. Best way to keep the rabies down– rabies happens whenever dogs pant in the summer time, don’t you know? Vivisection. Where’s my knife?

And yet, in every era, there are people who have taken compassion on these animals, like Montague Stevens, the great bear hunter from New Mexico, who trained his motley pack of bear hounds (which included a borzoi, a Great Dane, and an Old English sheepdog) to hunt grizzly bears using only pieces of bread as food rewards.

But the book is not a defense of animal rights movement entirely. Indeed it has a rather harsh critique of the class biases that exist within the founding of that movement. The poor use dogs to do things of economic necessity. It’s not pretty. It makes our cities look bad. So let’s blame all animal cruelty on the poor! Rich and well-bred men don’t abuse dogs. You know that.

The book is very good at tearing into these sorts of arguments as they have appeared throughout history. They have not disappeared in the least. The institutions that claim to stand up for the welfare and “integrity” of our dogs are now mostly morally bankrupt, but that bankruptcy is hardly new. Most of these institutions– be they animal rights behemoths or multi-breed registries–have always been without any sort of common decency. Class biases, racial integrity eugenics, and outright greed have always dominated dog institutions, dog culture, and dog politics in this country.

If you want an idea of how depraved man has behaved towards Canis lupus familiaris, A Dog’s History of America is a great resource. Of course, my bias towards this sort of “bottom-up” social history may have played a role in my enjoyment of the book, but it is really well-researched and well-documented. I can’t find a better social history of dogs, but of course, I don’t think there are any others.