Why Are Dogs The Way They Are

From irc://irc.stratics.com/forsakenstudios
The channel for ForsakenStudios.com and their upcoming game titled Embers of Caerus.

EamonnDH: Why are dogs so dumb?

I'm glad someone asked that question.

Dogs are not entirely stupid. But they are perpetually distracted. To begin with, they see with their noses. And the colours are so LOUD, that way. It's like they're on acid, all the time.

Hearing also plays a role in their distraction. Dogs can, of course, hear things we cannot-- not only a world of other frequencies, but a vastly subtle range of intonations. However, they lack the ability to decode exact meaning. To your dog, you sound like an adult in a 'Peanuts' cartoon. You could easily be replaced with a saxophone, going "wah WAH wah wah WAH".

On top of that, from the kitchen, they sense "BACON!!!1!". Their sense of smell speaks louder than our words.

Dogs have a somatic sense we could have, and could only have developed, if we too had evolved never to be able to take care of any of the immediate sensations of our bodies "later", "in private", and "using implements". For a dog, the way to deal with, for instance, an itchy butt is always "right now-- why not?", "right here", and "using my mouth, my paws, and perhaps your carpet".

Dogs suffer from a kind of apophenia, or at least from the apprehension of things which aren't there. They sense the potential as acutely as the actual. For example, the movie "Up" showed us the truth about dogs and SQUIRRELS. Dogs see squirrels everywhere, the way we see faces and steam engined-trains and ducks in the clouds when we're lying back in the grass and feeling fanciful.

So, your dog's typical sensory-memory train of thought goes something like: "*butt itches* NO wah WAH wah SQUIRREL! *must scratch* BAD DOG -but- BACON!!!"

Could we cope with it all even half as well? We *just don't know*.