Summary Of Dogs By Katherine Rogers

During the 19th century man became more interested in how their dogs looked rather than how special they were. Rogers talks about how dogs were classified in the human eye and she mentions how the outside appearance of dogs was more valuable than their actual usefulness and this ideology of beauty over quality is a form of distrust. When someone judges you based on your looks then they are basically . Rogers states that most standards around the world required that a dog should look the part it was bred to look and that it does not need actual skills in order to be classified as beautiful creatures by the human eye (143). This shows that even though humans had finally accepted dogs as one of their own, it does not mean that they stopped neglecting
Sometimes these assaults are direct such as kicking a dog in the street and laughing at its mystery for you entertainment, while other times the neglect can be indirect such as objectifying your dog or changing its identity completely. All these acts of cruelty resulted from attitudes such as distrust for many people would often compare dogs to supernatural activities such as witchcraft. Also the mindset of many people during the early modern times was that all of one's compassion and love should be saved for another human being so being distrustful towards an animal was quite easy for someone during this time. Another familiar attitude towards dogs was the belief that they are inferior to us and this attitude was enforced among dogs in a multitude of ways. One main action many people took during the 19th century was that they would toy with dogs lives. usually poor individuals would do dreadful things such as drown a dog slowly in order to pass time. Other times wealthier individuals would prove their superiority over their dogs by making them do petty tasks which weren’t necessarily harmful but it had the point of taking away value and worth from you dog. People would make their dogs do these small things because it would seem cute to them and these lesser works would harm their dog because it prevented them from growing a strong physique which they can use to survive in the wild. Instead all of these domestic activities made them weaker and more vulnerable to the outside world. So the idea of dogs being inferior to us led us to believe we have complete control over them and this made us harm them and make an entertainment source out of them which harmed them even more in the long term. Finally our human behavior of choosing beauty over usefulness made us neglect many unattractive dogs and it gave more value to a dog's looks rather than their functions which