there's a dog across the street, and the first couple of times it saw me walk by, it modulated between incessant yelping and curious distance. but, as it has seen me walk by a few times, it's grown accustomed to me, and is now approaching me with wagging tail and sagging tongue.
see, i think it's figured out what i'm doing when i go out. i don't want to say the magic w-word, it might know and get excited, and think....but alas, no. i will walk...shit...right by every time.
central to this change in reaction, i think, is the recognition that i live across the street. the dog seems to have noticed that, specifically, and been able to abstract close living conditions with pack membership. i live in this dog's hood, so i'm therefore cool to walk with.
it remains to be seen how the dog reacts to repeated rejection, as i continue to saunter by and leave it behind. in it's dog's mind, it no doubt believes it has an equal opportunity to walking, and it damned well knows i'm going for a walk - without him. behavioural tests on dogs have shown that they understand preferential treatment, and have an intuitive concept of justice around sharing, up to the point that they are, of course, immensely competitive for resources. it's the same contradictions we have, just in a more primal and less restrained form. so, the dog is going to no doubt feel left out, at some point.
the real revolution, of course, will come when the dog takes the initiative to walk itself. only then can there be true opportunity for all to engage in equal walking; for the dog to gain the freedom of a human to walk at will, it must seize it for itself. but, there is such a high level of responsibility to self-walking, including the need to regulate defecation, to avoid biting and to just plum out not run away, that it seems questionable whether self-walking is a realistic goal for the dog population at this point. there would really need to be a social revolution in doggy behaviour, and it would no doubt need to be expressed genotypically before it could be established with any force or regularity.
but, i wonder if the friendly dog again turns vicious in the end, due to dejection.
'cause i'm goin' for a walk. that's right. a walk. see ya doggy....