Valley Of The Dogs.

Valley of the Dogs
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Once upon a time, long, long ago, there was a land where dogs were the top-dog of all the beings on earth. This was before man was man.

Dogs had a society that was peaceful, no cat-fights were allowed, as a matter of fact, even dog-fights were frowned upon. Matters of discord were settled by a simple act of licking each others chops or a good wagging of tails were acceptable, even a sniffing here and there was ample.

Well mannered dogs did not fight, there was no reason to. As a matter of fact, dogs have a gentle disposition, they are very loyal and lovable. They like to frolic all day long, with a ball, bone or a stick. Run and fetch being the top game enjoyed by most dogs. Hide and seek is another popular game, where one dog will dig a hole and hide an item and the other dogs have to find it.

Dogs have no political agenda, they all live in an idealistic concept where ‘the pack is all’ and the leader of the pack is the most dominant dog. The most dominant dog is the one who has automatic respect, no dog will dare dispute his position. He is born into this position. His father was Top Dog, now he is the Top Dog.

The Top Dog in this community was really the dog amongst dogs. No dog would dare disobey his rule.
In retrospect, dogs were not very good artisans, true, they enjoyed life and lived in peace in a ‘dog utopia’, yet as builders, they were not very good. Proof of this is the fact that there are no artifacts or ruins to attest to their being the masters of the world.

Only the ‘legends of the dogs’, which came through the ages.

One of these ‘legends’ is the rendition of - The Wall. This is a sad saga of greatness and shortcoming in a society.

The Top Dog went for a stroll one day, casually visiting here and there, a lick here, a sniff there and a lot of tail wagging all over among the gentry. Eventually, a call of nature took Top Dog to go behind one of the kennels. (yes … they were called kennels, even in those days)

As was mentioned previously, dogs were not good artisans, their building skills left much to be desired.
His calling was great, so great in fact, that the kennel’s foundation was washed away, causing the walls to fall over on the Top Dog, causing a few broken bones and some deep lacerations.

The result of this incident was that a new law was proclaimed;
- If, and when, a calling of nature is performed, one leg will be used to support all buildings and /or structures.

This law is still adhered to, till this day, as I am sure you have seen.

All great empires come to an end. There were the Romans, Greeks and Egyptians, even further back into unknown history, empires have fallen.

The great empire of the Dogs come to an end as well.

How did this happen, will you ask? Maybe a great natural catastrophe, debauchery or some terrible disease? Unfortunately, nothing as shattering as that, only a small mistake, nothing great, to end a great empire.

Everybody has heard a dog howl at the full moon, heard it bark and yap. There was a time when that was pure music.

Recreation was a great part of the Dog world and part of this recreation took on the form of song and dance. The top singers in the Dog world would entertain all the other dogs. All the dogs gathered in a great cavern and there would be singing and dancing right all through the night. Afterwards, everybody would go home to sleep and eat and return again the following night for more merriment.

Now it is to be expected, bathing was not a great habit of dogs, even to this day, dogs are not really fond of a bath. The smell would have been totally unbearable in the cavern, so they had a way of removing their backsides and these were then put into little cubicles till the end of the show.

One evening, one dog was reckless with his fire-torch, and the next thing, all the fittings, everything caught fire. Everybody stampeded out, grabbing a backside, it was terrible. The complete world of the Dogs was gutted, nothing was left and the dogs were forced to disperse for survival.

In this way, they lost all of their civilization and when man came on the scene, the dogs found a creature that they could relate to.

Now, when you see a dog sniffing another dog, you will know it is looking for its lost part. If a fight should start, you will know, the one has the others part and does not want to part with the part.

If your pooch should chase its tail merrily, it is not madness, only a part of a dance of years, long, long ago.