How about a dog collar for dog lovers? If you find companionship in dogs, and read in their faces such “human” qualities as insight and empathy, why not show some empathy yourself and submit to their leash. I don’t mean a collar and rope which your dog can restrict or yank at whim, but a collar tethered to his collar. Why not?

I’m guessing it would mean the end of straining at the leash in either direction, if you want to modify your best friend’s behavior so radically. Otherwise it might disrupt the imbecilic notion that dogs have inherent civility enough to be taken out in public.

Leash-less dogs would be the ideal, un-neutered even, taken to dog parks where everyone is into that sort of thing. Or a free-for-all everywhere. But if you’re going to regulate how people use sidewalks and other common spaces, I’d rather not have to negotiate beings not behaving on their own accord.

If dogs have the emotional development of a toddler, but an unrestrained sex drive, perhaps you’re projecting a little in what you think you’re getting out of exchanges with your companion. The good which pet “owners” get from having an animal in their lives sounds drastically one sided. Do we dismiss the domestic pet as just another beast of burden to serve human existence, or should we seek a sustainable balance showing full respect for all beings in a near as possible natural state?