Author Topic: PC060: The evolution of trickster stories among the dogs of North Park after the  (Read 15170 times)

jay daze

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I really liked this story, it was very disturbing to listen to which is always a good sign.  I agree with JoeFitz that the master/slave analogy doesn't really capture whatever our relationship is with the animals we live with.  The story seems to be much more about the human reaction to the dogs than the dogs themselves.  The acquisition of language highlighted how humans treat and mistreat dogs, while the dog themselves seemed to stay the same.  That's probably why I felt the 'one dog' stories (while I enjoyed them) were beside the point, more useful as showing the dogs as dogs, rather than showing the development of a radical separatist doggy sect.  But overall a story that makes me consider how I am with my dogs.



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I really liked this story, in fact I'd rank it among my favorites, though there were plenty of things I didn't like about it.  The "This is the same dog" repitition rang very nicely to my ears, and I enjoyed the trickster stories much more than I did the main narrative.  I was looking forward to the next story as I was listening to the rest.

As others have said, I didn't much care for the master/slave imposition on the human/animal relationship.  Most dogs these days are pets, though some do of course carry useful employment such as seeing-eye dogs, hunting dogs, drug-sniffing dogs.  Even those working dogs have a mental disposition that it's not slavery, they are rewarded with treats and/or affection in a way that is very fulfilling to them.  Yes, the existence of dogs was created by mankind's bending of the animals to their own wills over the course of millennia, but that does not make my dog a slave or myself a slave owner.  Domesticated dogs existed before I was born.  Furthermore, my three dogs are rescue dogs, which would have been killed if someone had not taken them in.

Another way that the story didn't mesh well is that everybody's relationships with their dogs became so antagonistic.  Spoken language or no, once you get to know a dog it's not very difficult to read their emotions in their body language, whether they're happy, angry, sad, scared, sick, etc...  So if my dogs were able to speak, it would be along the same lines of expressing the same emotions they've already expressed.  And would probably be much more along the lines of that beer commercial where there is an obscure brand of beer that supposedly lets you understand animals, and the dog is just sitting there and yelling "Sausages" over and over again.  The pooches are smart, but yeah sometimes they have a one track mind.

I didn't believe that the police could get away with poisoning a park full of dogs without anyone protesting it. 

And where was PETA in all of this?  Some PETA supporters already get very militant about animals rights the way it is now, don't you think that would magnify if the animals could speak for themselves?  Even non-PETA groups might argue for animal rights if it could be argued that the critters are sentient. 

And much more interesting than the dog relationship is the livestock relationship, which I was disappointed that the story didn't explore at all.  The story even mentioned hamburger, so presumably they're still butchering the cows who can now talk to them.  Me, I don't think I'll ever give up meat, but if cows started talking, I would go vegetarian immediately.  It seemed like the author just wanted to stick to the dogs, but then it would've made more sense to just make the dogs alone able to talk.  Ignoring the consequences of the rest of the domesticated animals just made the world seem more like a thought exercise, an allegory, than any place that could exist even within its own rules.  I still really enjoyed the trickster tales, but that made it hard to get into the main part of the story.




nojojojo

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Wow.  I don't often comment here, but this story was powerful and beautiful enough to draw me out of my lurker silence.  What a crazy, beautiful, terrible metaphor for slavery and exploitation.  I wouldn't have bought the idea that humans would mass-abandon and mass-murder their pets, if it had just been a story about dogs and cats learning to talk, and people freaking out.  But the underlying message that people like having power over others and they don't react well when they lose that power... that made the story.  It's happened so often in our species' history, just between us humans and even between male and female.  So I have no trouble believing it would happen between us any any other species on this planet that suddenly became sentient.

And I loved the use of folktale styling throughout -- the stories of OneDog (this is the same dog) blending into Coyote legends... the implication that the dogs were developing their own culture... wow.

Going to go see if this was first published in 2009; hopefully I can add it to my Nebula nominations.



nevermore_66

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I think the contrast between pet/owner and master/slave was purposely highlighted, actually.  We think of them as separate roles, that we keep pets for "companionship" and it's nothing like slavery, ew, but really, we have taken and trained these animals for tens of thousands of years, altered their very genetic makeup to better suit ourselves, and why?  Selfish desires.  Originally, after all, pets were domesticated to work; dogs guarded houses and helped with hunting; cats kept pests out of food stores; cows and pigs were food animals.  The reason the pets are compared to slaves is itself an attempt to get us to re-examine our relationships with our pets.  Why DO we keep them around?  What do we get out of it?  What would they think of the arrangement if they were able to examine it abstractly and logically, as we do?

That discomfort is the whole point of the story, I think.  It's not meant to draw a clear and bright line connecting pets to slaves, nor saying that the two states are equivalent, but by making the jarring juxtaposition to help us think more deeply about our actions and motivations and perhaps understand our pets a little better.


My reaction was pretty parallel to Scattercat.

A lot of pet lovers didn't like the some of implications...and I don't think you're meant too. The discomfort was the point. I personally think this is someone who knows animals. I could be wrong, but I do not think the author is saying that we're all horrible slave masters of our pets.  This isn't really a story about people who beat or torture animals.  This is about everyday people who love their pets...but it explores a less comfortable side of that relationship, which I think shows depth, the way another story might explore the darker sides of our human relationships with lovers, siblings, parents, etc. (people we genuinely love).

As far as showing accuracy in the relationship between dogs and humans...it's not...it's showing that relationship with a wrinkle, a complication.  Speech, an increased intelligence, and a developing society with an oral tradition throws a huge monkey wrench into the social dynamic; even if it worked fine before, it's changed now.  We love, cherish, feel connected to our dogs, true (and I don't think the story challenges that), but that dynamic is set with us as dominant (no matter how much of an animal wuver you like to consider yourself). Change the power-scale, and the system might suffer.  The dog is not a pet...it's almost more of a roommate.  How do you explain to your roommate why you had to cut off his genitals?  How do you tell your roommate that no, you get to eat all the pizza and no, no sex for you?

Think of all the things that you don't have to answer for, to your pet.  It's easy to rest assured that you did something in your animal companion's best interest, when there is no one to challenge that notion but your own smiling reflection.

How do you explain to an overly miniature Teacup Yorkie why she is the way she is--bred over thousands of years, from her powerful, primal body, into something so small and impractically designed for living (for the sake of cuteness) that by all laws of nature she should not exist--in fact is punished by that abhorring nature with a list of bodily problems (long enough to almost smack comedic) including joint complications, mood swings, an undersized esophagus causing breathing problems and heart strain leading up to a relatively young death by exploding heart (my Mom's dog in a nutshell...this story made me wonder what she might have said to me).

I don't think the author was showing us THE horrible truth about our relationships with our pets...but a possible truth, a dark little back alley in our otherwise loving relationships.  And that is a level of complexity and nuance I can admire.  And I'm certainly not an activist who wants to end the practice of pet ownership (I've had many in my life and will likely have many more).

But that's just my thoughts on that one issue.  I loved the trickster story.  I really liked the repetition of "One dog" and thought it was a good refrain and very accurate to a developing oral story tradition.

One of my all time favorite Podcastle stories thus far.
« Last Edit: February 04, 2010, 12:42:08 AM by nevermore_66 »

"There is no exquisite beauty…without some strangeness in the proportion."
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Malapropos de Rien

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The dog is not a pet...it's almost more of a roommate.  How do you explain to your roommate why you had to cut off his genitals?  How do you tell your roommate that no, you get to eat all the pizza and no, no sex for you?
Think of all the things that you don't have to answer for, to your pet.  It's easy to rest assured that you did something in your animal companion's best interest, when there is no one to challenge that notion but your own smiling reflection.
So, are we thus to assume that along with gaining speech, the dogs are losing their pack mentality?  Because if not, then I think a dog would understand these things better than a human roommate would.  There will always be a top dog, or a leader of the pack.  For our pets, we are that leader. 

If you have more than one dog, you will probably find them working out for themselves which one of them is in charge of the others -- which one gets the first pick of the food, the better sleeping place, etc.  Second and third in command after the humans.  And those subordinates who don't submit to the whims of the dominant dogs are punished with claws and teeth.  This is a pretty common social structure out in nature, so really I think if anyone would have a problem with it, it's the humans, not the dogs.  These humans would perhaps feel uncomfortable not because the dogs seemed more human, but because it reminds us that we are also animals.

(I don't comment on the genitals, since that's a complicated issue, and I haven't taken any action on that subject myself.)