I’d like to throw out an idea that’s been bubbling in my head since the WA trip. Not so long ago, dogs were tools. They were companions, too, and often protectors, but they were first and foremost tools built – in this case bred – to make their owner’s harsh life easier. Nowadays, that’s not so much the case. All dogs would like to have a job to do that they were trained for, to know what’s expected of them, but we don’t live those lifestyles any more. Nowadays dogs can still be tools as opposed to a luxury or member of the family or they can even be nothing more than something for the kids to play with when they want to, but stuck in the back yard and feed when you think about it once they lose interest. There was no pattern to how these opinions of dogs broke down as we traveled across the states. Rather there were different pockets of the one attitude or the other. But I can tell you this, when I would see abandoned dogs on the side of the road or dogs running lose, or an excessive number killed by cars on the roadway, or clearly none were spayed or neutered, I saw something else. I saw more trash littered on the streets. And I saw more people wearing ragged closes and sleeping in alleyways or at bus stops. They reminded me of the dogs with nowhere particularly to go and no job even though they wanted one. So I’m beginning to think that the way our society treats our dogs is a symptom, not the disease. Disposable litter, disposable pets … disposable people? Yes, it’s a simplification, yes there are exceptions to every rule. But the more I look around, the more I see a correlation. If we treated the smaller disposables better, would it trickle up? If we treated the more important disposables better, would it trickle down? Of course that idea led to lots of other thoughts and ways to educate and improve the situation. We really want this project to be all about coming up with answers. But we’d like to see comments and ideas instead of me rambling on. What do you think?