Social class takes a BITE!!!

             What does your circle of friends say about you?? Maybe you hang out with the Home-boyz and thug-out an afternoon, maybe you get your pom-poms tangled up in gossip during cheer-leading practice, or you may even be in the fortunate circle of parenthood. Whichever friends we associate ourselves with, it’s our way of letting not only the world but ourselves know who we are and what we stand for. But of course nothing else is more prone to change than who we are, what we stand for, and our social class. When this happens we may break up with our friend(s).  So what happens when one runs into a conflict of social interest with “our” best friend??  No, not your best friend but our best friend, man’s best friend!

Unlike your human friends, your furry pal cannot chose to leave you because of your political or personal outlook on life and they did not chose to be part of your pack because of your social class; despite the fact they don’t have the will to choose an owner. Dogs play a crucial part in our American society. They are not only loyal companions and hold many critical duties among us in our professional lives, but very often and unseemly they are a social statement we make.  Just like cars we very much want our dogs to reflect who we are or more likely who we want to be. A very typical case would be the Pit-Bull Terrier, valued for the variety of beautiful coats available with the breed, the absolute beauty and dominance of its muscular frame, and for its widest known fact  its jaw strength.  This would be the “bigger stick syndrome” having a bigger and tougher dog would in turn mean a bigger and tougher human, which is completely false and absurd. You can easily see how a non-forward thinking person would be intrigued and impulsively purchase a pit-bull.

More over sometimes it’s not about the physical feats that a dog may offer but the proposition of class that is so luring for people. A perfect example for this is the Akita; One of the oldest, if not the oldest, breed of dogs and also considered the “purest” of all breeds. The Akita is the epitome of traditional Japanese culture.  With origins stretching back centuries to medieval/samurai times, the Akita was once allowed to be owned by only the most elite of Japanese class.  The Akita reminds so much of the samurai sword. They both propose class distinction and sophistication for the owner. 

The issue here is not that we are so occupied with ourselves and class that everything, even our dogs must, resemble our identity nor is the issue about our insecurities and our insatiable need to fix them. The underlying fault here is that people are bringing these dogs into their lives with little to no knowledge of how to properly care and tend to the breed’s specific needs. For dogs such as the Pit-bull and Akita, training and health care are so critical for the animal’s wellbeing as well as the wellbeing of its surrounding community.

 These two robust breeds possess so much power physically and psychologically, that when we place our interests before theirs, these breeds can be very dangerous especially without proper training and structure. To put in perspective a grim reality, dogs will always be loyal and love us for whatever social class we are but it is us who abandon them when we come to realize our responsibility for them fall outside our social interest and we lose control and their trust, this is when society truly takes a bite.