nothing new here, but I like the way he says it. This is from an interview with a writer named Jonathan Carroll:
RT: Speaking of Petals, why do dogs figure so prominently in your works, particularly as figures of pathos? They seem to be bridge characters, conduits for fabulism... JC: ...the letters from there to here. People always ask, what's this dog thing? And I always say, dogs are like minor angels. They love you purely. They forgive you purely. They're happy to see you. You can wake a dog up at three in the morning and say, hey let's play ball, and they'll say OKAY! My wife won't do that. My son won't do that. My friends won't do that. Three o'clock in the morning-let's go get pizza! OKAY! We overlook these extraordinary qualities even though we wish they would manifest themselves in people. I always have bull terriers because they're funny and they're ugly. That's what I love about them. They look like little pigs walking around. They kind of sober you up and straighten you out when you're blue or you're angry. You look at this little pal sitting under your feet saying, Hey! Let's go out! And you say, Okay, let's go out. They remind you of reality. All I've done is ratcheted that up a little, so you have magical dogs. I like the idea that we're constantly surrounded by things that are angelic and supernatural-but we put them in this convenient, sort of degraded place because that's easier for us. RT: Biologists have been looking at dogs, at those qualities as evolutionary traits. The wolves that happened to come closest to the campfire got hooked in- JC: Right. It reminds me of James Michener's book The Source-there's a wonderful section about the first dog ever to be friendly with man-or that scene in Dances With Wolves where the wolf circles him for days, then takes the food out of his hands. I think there is a wonderful symbiosis between dogs and men, unless you're a monster and mistreat them. You serve each other's needs. I know my dog is a good friend of mine. Vilma Briggs (Kistner) Mt. Gilead, OH U-UD Mocha Java Slurp, UDX, HIC, TT Ch. Brighteye Expresso Bean, UD, NDD, TT U-CDX Our Little Buddy, UD, NA, TT Thirdtym's A Charm, CGC and Ted