Veterinary science and animal biological studies can sometimes be among the driest material a person can sit themselves down to read through, but if you’re looking for specific details, it can be wonderfully illuminating. I, for one, have long loved dogs, mostly of the ‘working’ breeds (German Shepherds, Golden Retrievers, Labradors being my favorites), but I must confess that although I’ve always enjoyed canines as familial companions, I’ve never spent a good deal of time learning about their physiology.
That’s my bad. I should spend more time on it, overall.
Recently, it was once again brought to many folks’ attention that there are many adherents to the religion of Islam who consider dogs to be filthy, wretched animals, that they are borderline haram except when being used in farming and herding practices, and shouldn’t be kept around just for companionship. There are scholars in muslim circles calling for dogs to be removed from public spaces, to be disallowed from being walked along public easements, sidewalks, or in parks.
To these folks, I have the following message: go fuck yourselves, Fido isn’t filthy.
There is a view in Islam that anything licked by a dog must be washed multiple times to cleanse it, which seems like a fairly common sense thing in and of itself. I love my dogs, but I agree that it feels a touch gross when they get slobbery and lick my face or hands too excessively. A quick wipe of the hand on my pants or brief run under some lukewarm water and a towel to dry are sufficient for my purposes, but muslims require a minimum of seven washings before the object in question is considered ‘cleansed of the taint’. For my part, this seems excessive to the point of nonsensical.
It should be noted that a dog’s saliva, on average, possesses a mild antiseptic effect thanks to the presence of enzymes and proteins that help clean wounds and remove certain harmful bacteria and debris. However, excessive licking of humans can cause problems, such as tearing of the edges of a wound, or the introduction of foreign minerals and biotics due to their specific diets, what they happen to scrounge on, and the fact that a dog’s tongue is naturally designed to be applied to the dogs themselves, meaning that it is surfaced and shaped to be applied against fur and skin of their own species, not human hair and skin. In short, humans can benefit from lickies, but only in small doses. Dogs also use licking to ‘mark’ a human as their own, thanks to their heightened sense of smell.
If you’ve ever heard the old wives’ tale doggerel of ‘A dog’s mouth is cleaner than yours’, this is where that notion comes from. Nine times out of ten, it’s absolutely true.
There’s also the evolutionary element to consider, the fact that dogs are descended from wolves that started living near and eventually wandering into human encampments, forming mutually beneficial, symbiotic partnerships with mankind in order to hunt and secure prey for their collective survival and thriving. Different clans and tribes of people ended up practicing animal husbandry with these canines to specifically train and adapt them for various purposes, and this is responsible for the variety of breeds of dogs that we have in the modern age.
I would like to apologize to God for our designed production of the poodle and chihuahua. Forgive us, Lord, we know not what we do.
This was not a swift process, even given the shorter lifespans of canines versus humans. The adaptations which resulted in different breeds and bloodlines of dogs as we see them today took at least tens of thousands of years according to biologists, especially those involved in the study of evolutionary biology. I know this will run counter to the belief structure of Young Earth Creationists of all stripes, including the ones whose prophet married a 6 year old girl and ‘consummated’ that marriage when she was apparently all of 9 or 10.
No wonder Hasan Piker has such strong sympathies for Islam; they hate dogs and like the girls young! Before anyone leaps in to sweep for this pituary retard, let’s not forget his inquiry while referring to a pre-18 Miley Cyrus: “Old enough to count, old enough to mount?” Yeah, that one aged like mayonnaise left out in the summer sun.
The latest calls from Islamists and less-extreme Muslims to minimize or remove entirely the presence of dogs from public spaces are largely coming from New York City, thanks in part to their new mayor, Zohran Bomb-dani, being an adherent to the Path of No Bacon, But Child Brides Are A-Okay. As an aside, I’m not entirely sure if Bomb-dani is primarily an Islamist smuggling in commie ideas, or a commie smuggling in Islamist ideas. Boy howdy, he and Hasan really are a match that way, aren’t they? I’m not sure which Hasan’s got to be more jealous of, the fact that the mayor gets to just steal people’s money to ‘redistribute equitably’ like Hasan’s cheered on for years, or the fact that the guy actually has some kind of political power beyond just running his mouth on a livestream for hours without end.
These calls for removing dogs carries echoes on X/Twitter and Facebook in the form of people posting the question, ‘If you had to choose between your dog and a refugee, which would you choose?’ The way this inquiry is framed is, I would posit, the very cause for it being so frequently answered in favor of the pooch. Look at the word that comes before ‘dog’ in that question: ‘your’. As in, YOUR companion/pet, as opposed to some rando from who-knows-where. And not to put too fine a point on it, but it should escape nobody’s notice that an inordinately high percentage of these refugees and ‘asylum seekers’ (that’s a whole other topic for another day) come here from either communist hellholes or Islamic theocracies in various shades of “This place sucks”. Yet when they get here, they insist upon establishing enclaves and territories much akin to the very same places they just fled.
Given that framework, I’d rather resurrect Cujo as opposed to a refugee. He’s apt to do less harm to the neighborhood…
Obviously I’m engaging in more than a smidge of hyperbole here, but what do you want from me, folks? The very same people advocating for kicking Fido to the curb or graveyard are the same ones who hate nearly every aspect of what makes dogs as companions in domesticated or hunting partnership in resource-rich places like the Americas great. And beyond the dog-hating or fearing Muslims, there’s the liberal weak-knees, too terrified to defend Fido if the pooch should make Mr or Mrs Allahu-ak-BOOM uncomfortable because doing so might be misconstrued as them not being a very good ‘ally’ to ‘marginalized peoples in the West’,
“You’re an Islamphobe, Josh!”
Islamoskeptical, douchebag. Go back to knitting your hijab and waving farewell to your 'fur baby’, since you won’t deign to have any kids of your own, you cretin.
So, to wrap it up, ladies and gents, if you feel the need to insist that dogs be removed from parks, or sidewalks, or other public places because they are viewed as filthy or dangerous by your religion or culture, allow me to point out that no dog that I’m aware of ever formed up with other dogs into a grooming gang.
Nor did one ever strap a vest full of explosives around itself to kill a bunch of other dogs, so as far as I’m concerned, dogs are pretty good people.
Dogs have one attribute that Muslims don't. They know good from Evil. A dog will growl at an untrustworthy person, and have never been wrong. If a dog doesn't like you, then something is wrong with you.