Dogopolis

Courage, loyalty, guardianship. These are but three attributes that dogs have enjoyed in many societies and throughout mythology. As birth rates plummet in 21st century America, dogs are becoming proxy children, especially in cities where apartment space can be precious. San Francisco leads the pack with these new demographics (dogographics?). According to a 2006 National Geographic article, there are 110,000 dogs safely folded into society here, one for every seven Golden Gate denizens. Not surprisingly, expendable income follows the wagging tail. As a professional dogwalker, I am one of the hundreds of new nannies that have taken over public parks and sundry sidewalks. We are the new working class of family helpers.

Power dynamics have been thrown upside down as these new dogs expect to be spoiled. It is we humans now who do the heavy lifting for our loved ones. There are still breeds and individual dogs who like to fulfill their duties, (e.g. alerting the family of strangers or visitors, fetching the newspaper, herding animals,) but in the city it's way more likely that a puggle will parade around in his latest sailor outfit. Call it the obligation to be cute.

Dogs have a long symbolic history of all that is just in the world. Chinese Astology has those born in the year of the dog as insufferably egalitarian and deadly-serious in the compassion department (the city of San Francisco at times shares this humorlessness). Farther west, Hecate, the three-spirited moon goddess, always has her dogs in tow. She was instrumental as a liaison between Demeter, Earth Goddess and Hades, God of the Underworld when Hades kidnapped the fair Persephone. Hecate in this sense is the real balancer of the seasons; for each Pomegranite seed that Persephone ingested another month of winter was added as Demeter mourned. From this myth, the dog came to be associated as a psychopomp, guiding or carrying souls to the other side respectfully. In 21st century America, I often wonder if the dog now is guiding our own capacity to become real stewards or servants of the Earth and all her creatures great and small. What would such a world look like?