What We’ve Done to Wolves

by Amy Collier · December 16, 2014

Amy Collier’s previous work for The Toast can be found here.

Poodles:
1 poodle

Bloodhounds:
2 bloodhound

Chow-Chows:
3 chow chows

Chihuahuas:
4 chihuahuas

Large mops:
5 mop

Painful-looking eyes:
6 painful eyes

Smushed their faces beyond recognition:
7 smushed face

Stole their legs:
8 taken legs

Whatever the hell this is:
9 whatever the hell

I don’t even know:
10 I don't know

My Little Pony:
11 my little pony

Head poofs:
12 head poof1
13 head poof2
14 head poof 3

Headbeards:
15 headbeards

Roof tiles:
16 roof tile

Bred them with mice (?):
17 bred with mice

Portraiture:
18 portrait 1
19 portrait 2

Clothed and bathed them:
20

Gave them a voice:
21

Shampoo commercials:
22 shampoo commercial

Taken their zest for life:
23

Thanked them:
24 thanked Balto

Friendship:
26 friendship
25 friendship

Killed their pride:
27 killed their pride

Broken their spirit:
28 broken their spirit

Shame and degradation:
29 shame and degredation

The internet:
30 the internet

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121 Comments

    1. Allpha7 +17

      I love Balto!

      He’s at the Cleveland Natural History Museum which I visit often, and I make sure everyone in the room is aware that it’s BALTO! JESUS PEOPLE WHY AREN’T YOU MORE EXCITED?

    2. storysold +16

      The Balto statue in Central Park was the highlight of my trip to New York as a six year-old. Empire State what? Statue of Liberty who?

  3. ramina +18

    Shame and Degradation dog looks like he is in the dog version of When Mum Isn’t Home.

    brb gonna go slam an oven door open and shut

    1. CleverManka +13

      I agree. Shame and Degradation dog actually looks like he’s having a better time at the party than I usually do.

  4. RuncibleSpoon +34

    I grew up with a chow, and they’re great. Fluff factor much higher than wolves.

    No wolf-y regrets. I’d do it again, I tell ya!

    1. RuncibleSpoon +42

      And by ‘it’ I mean support the wholesale modification of noble ancient beasts into giant fluffballs.

      1. Fl0ssieraptor +27

        I want one so bad but I’m afraid that I’d spend all my time messing with their face and never go to work and I need a job for rent and lipsticks.

        1. sorrycassandra +28

          And dog food. That is the fundamental problem with dog ownership. You cannot explain it to them. “I’m sorry, sweetie, I have to go sit in front of a desk all day so you’ll have kibble in the bowl. It’s called capitalism.”

          1. Fl0ssieraptor +19

            I’m going to write a book called ‘Explaining Harsh Economic Realities to Dogs and Cats.’

  7. beakbreath +57

    My uncle has 7 (seven!!!) chow mixes and they run around his farm as a giant pack of fluff. It’s so beautiful.

  10. paddlepickle +46

    I thought this was gonna be a really sad article about environmental degradation so THANK YOU.

      1. PonyAlong +16

        As a former ver receptionist in a very busy hospital that primarily catered to breeders, I got your “forced breeding degradation” theme right away. The horror stories in the name of “best in show”….simply awful, sad and rage inducing.

  11. laurenipsum +35

    At Metafilter there is a house rule that any post or comment about one’s pet(s) must include pictures of said pet(s). I think we should adopt this rule here.

        1. birdyann +19

          On holidays and special occasions, his daycare has costumed photo shoots, which is why they can have all of my money.

    3. laurenipsum +22

      I realize I just dropped this comment then disappeared without following my own rule, but I was in a meeting all day. Here are Fry and Ruby June sleeping identically.
      ''

      Ruby is on Facebook, she will friend you if you want.

      1. Es_Petal +52

        Captain Stripeypants was called Hamish when I got him because my mum (who gave him the name) thought he looked just like a Scottish wildcat.
        Which he does, although he is more horrified by snow than they are.

        The HORROR!

    2. Karaine +1

      Well, I have to say I always believed the same about cats. ( I grew up with cats but didn’t know dogs until I was in my late 20s.

      But, we are(people are) the cause of dog’s being treated with so much nonsense!

      And as much as I still love cats, we really shouldn’t compare them. Dogs are, as you probably know, *pack animals*.

      So, dogs have no concept like we do, of independence, focusing on their own needs alone or choosing to make an unpopular decision that their families don’t appreciate!

  14. mkpatter +54

    Is this where we can discuss the Pope saying/not saying dogs go to heaven? OBVIOUSLY DOGS GET A FREE PASS TO HEAVEN, THEY ARE BETTER THAN ALL OF US.

    1. allofthewhine +25

      I was actually really excited by this. He basically said in heaven you’ll be surrounded by whatever makes you the happiest, which for me = dogs.

      1. winterbymorning +60

        But the things that make me happiest are the things that previous popes said I’d go to hell for…

        1. NotThatAmy +25

          The thing that make me happiest is a large fraction of previous popes not being in heaven… a conundrum.

    2. BobbieWickham +29

      If admission to heaven went by merit, heaven would be populated SOLELY by dogs. Heaven is theirs by right and ours by grace. Let us thank the LORD for his mercy in allowing us into the dogs’ heaven.

    3. Karaine +1

      But then, there’s nothing to discuss Megano!

      I always believed dogs and other animals went to heaven. Now even the Pope agrees. ☺️
      Cool.

  15. zachariahary +130

    I’m always kinda confused that different dog breeds show any affinity for each other. Not really sure how a wolfhound and a dachshund recognize each other as the same species. I feel like that’d be like me walking up to an ostrich and being like, ‘oh cool, you’re bipedal and have a face of sorts, sounds pretty human to me. Do you know if there is a Chipotle around here?’

    Also, during a tender moment I once leaned over to my then girlfriend and whispered, “Baby, you’re like an Alaskan sled dog, cuz I’d be lost without you” and then burst into laughter.
    Favorite part was she’d never seen Balto, so she didn’t think I’d just dropped the world’s cheesiest children’s cartoon inspired joke-line, she just thought I was a lunatic.

      1. NotThatAmy +58

        Sometimes they don’t! I have a greyhound that is pretty sure that pomeranians are thrilling snacks.

    3. grlgoddess +63

      My lil weiner dog once met a long legged greyhound type, and it just freaked him the hell out! He refused to walk on the same side of the street.

      But get him in a room with a cat and he’s all “yes this is a mating compatible creature!”

      1. zachariahary +71

        From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
        A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life;
        No, like seriously star-crossed. Like, way too star-crossed.
        As in one is a confused wiener dog and one is a cat that is super skeeved out by him level of star-crossed.
        Seriously, this play is not gonna be super romantic.

        1. tongsandsporks +17

          To be fair, the source material isn’t super romantic and dogs can only do but so much.

    5. MilesofMountain +28

      I don’t think my parents’ rottie cross understands that small dogs are dogs. He has no problem with big mean dogs but if we run into a little mop dog on the trail his eyes get big and panicky and he runs away as fast as he can.

    6. jackalopeia +60

      When I was a kid and my dad decided we needed a chihuahua puppy, we were all a little concerned that our labrador would think it was a squirrel or something and try to chase it up a tree. But we brought her home and no, he was instantly like “this rodent-sized creature is a fellow dog, I will teach her my ways and play with her very gently by rolling onto my back and letting her bite my jowls.” I think she always related more to the cats, though, because she aspired to their true alpha status.

      1. wrappedupinbooks +50

        my friend has two labradoodles and a chihuahua, and the labradoodles love the chihuahua and once rescued it when a hawk tried to fly away with it

        1. Unreadaethel +9

          There are corgis who live behind a tall fence down the street from me. I enjoy walking past the fence very slowly, so they can chase me and bark like fiends in an effort to defend their territory.

    7. ZevNV +80

      I’m going to guess it’s a smell thing. Granted “It’s probably a smell thing” is my response to 95% of confusing dog behaviors.

    8. Es_Petal +40

      It’s quite common for normal sized horses not to realise that Shetlands and other tinybreeds are horses too – I know loads who are petrified of them.

      1. amymcollier +58

        I’m unconvinced this is an issue of species recognition so much an issue of horse ableism.

        1. hotforchocolate +57

          I like to think that horses think about shetland ponies the way we do about pixies/fairies and when they see them they get freaked out because all of a sudden magic is real and the world doesn’t make sense anymore.

        2. ejbaker13 +15

          Horses are also totally colorist. They tend to prefer hanging out with other horses of similar coloring, etc.

          1. Es_Petal +5

            I’ve heard several anecdotal stories about stallions who won’t cover grey mares. All our boys LOVE grey mares because of growing up with mine, who is apparently the sexiest thing on four legs and they all adore her.

      2. NotThatAmy +56

        I’ve known horses with a violent seething hatred for mules but who get along just fine with donkeys. Equine uncanny valley, I guess.

        1. Karaine

          Equine uncanny ___? (What’s the last word- I don’t think it’s really valley is it ?)

          We’d have to do much more research however. For instance was that hatred you observed with several horses in the area, or just a certain few on one farm? We’re they male horses? Were there any extenuating factors?
          And even anecdotally- have others told you they’ve witnessed the same aggression with horses confronting mules?

          Thank you for bringing it up!

      3. amymcollier +15

        I wonder how much research has been done on prejudice within other species. All I could find was a Scientific American article with a retracted study.

    9. femaelstrom +6

      I think about this a lot. To what extent can different breeds of dogs mate? Like could a chihuahua and a Great Dane breed? The chihuahua would be on top, of course, I’m not a monster.

  18. miprisci +82

    Eh, they had it coming. Hanging around our primordial campfires and shit, begging for scraps. Well, you’re dogs now, wolves. You did this to yourselves. But now you also get belly rubs, so really it’s a wash.

  19. queenofbithynia +65

    you all laugh as if this weren’t monstrous. There are three Corgis I often see out and about in my neighborhood — I know them all by sight — I have no idea who walks them, I never look up that far — but I feel such shame for loving them, such shame as the Roman must feel for the dying defeated Gaul, if it had been possible that the Gaul’s pride had been stamped out of him along with his life or, in the case of the corgi, his legs. this is the cost of empire, the moral degradation that comes with absolute power, the knowledge that you can do all this to a dumb beast and every physical and spiritual indignity will only make it love you more.

    anyhow that’s why I have a cat

      1. queenofbithynia +30

        oh christ those are so awful I don’t feel any guilty conflicted emotions, just pure revulsion for my own species for deliberately perpetuating this accident of a callous god. like if someone was breeding kittens for kitten-skin coats at least they would not pretend to love kitty cats at the same time.

    2. PonyAlong +15

      Ah, but have you seen what cat breeders have done to Persians? Faces so flat they have difficulty breeding and dumb, dumb, dumb. However, that is just one example whereas dog fanciers have generated far too many atrocities so score one for the cat lovahs.

      1. queenofbithynia +36

        I HAVE. but that’s the thing, the closer a cat gets to the pure platonic idea of a generic stray tabby cat the better a cat it is, you don’t have to weigh your desire for a cute pet against your moral compass because the more you overbreed a cat the worse it looks and the worse it feels.

        I like dog-shaped dogs, too, I feel nothing for a poodle or a terrier. but the corgi is such a miracle of cuteness it attacks my sense of ethics like the sea beats down a castle of sand. it is the most problematic of dogs.

        edit: what I mean to say is sure you can deform a cat to your whims and people do, but the cat doesn’t smile up at you and ask for more mistreatment just so it can prove its love some more. small mercies.

        1. PonyAlong +8

          I hear you re: crumbling in the face of cuteness. After my much beloved GSD trots off this mortal coil, I’m doggy downsizing and at one point, considered a corgi as a perfect replacement: herding smarts in a compact body with cuteness to boot. But since finding an ethical corgi breeder that actually works her/his corgi on cattle AND takes great care in finding good owners would be nigh impossible, I’ll stick to Plan B: Swedish Vallhund (less popular=soundness) and an SPCA senior needing a retirement home.

    3. mbculver +29

      I have a corgi and I rationalize my abject love for this ridiculous-looking animal by telling myself that we bred it short so it could harass the shit out of cows. Not quite wolf behavior, but, you know, pretty dang badass.

      1. queenofbithynia +12

        I bet it is ADORABLE. I bet cows would obey it just cause it smiles at them the way corgis do.

      2. sorrycassandra +12

        My parents have a corgi and she uses her cuteness for purest manipulation. But she’s very sweet about it. I don’t know what she would do to a cow.

        She had heartworms and puppies when she was rescued. My folks had to wait a while to get her spayed until the heartworms were cleared out, and of course she went into heat in the interim. They thought for a while she’d slipped the fence and found the lothario of a dachshund down the street. I called one of the puppies, but it turned out she hadn’t gotten any after all. It’s better this way, but damned if I don’t think sometimes about the dorgis that never were. Ultimate short-legged amazingness.

        1. mbculver +3

          My dog would bark like crazy at a cow for maybe 2 minutes, then get bored and look for some goose poop to snack on.

          Dorgis! OMG. If she did have a Passionate Encounter with lothario dachshund, I wonder if he used a brick?

    1. laurenipsum +1

      I like to put socks on their noses. If you have a knee sock and a small enough dog you can pull the sock all the way up over her skull.

  21. ZevNV +31

    Torn between “seriously, though, AKC breed standards are morally indefensible” and “LOOK AT THOSE FACES!”

      1. ladyimogen +10

        Haha they totally are! The dark dog losing the fight with my giant warrior princess belongs to a friend.

    3. tragicallyludicrous +18

      my parents’ dog is living her best life now, but that involves her sleeping on the bed with her head on the pillows

  23. BSD +12

    That’s a Puli in the Large Mop picture. Puli are tiny compared to Komondor, which, under this naming scheme would be enormous mop-monsters.

  24. CleverManka +25

    I never want to be a dog owner/parent but I love other people’s dogs. There is nothing in this world like a happy dog. This post and the comments are giving me life.

    Dogs, man. DOGS.

  26. Abanthis +4

    That second portraiture dog is MAGNIFICENT and also something is wonky about the scale which makes it appear to be about five feet tall in an average room

  27. Unreadaethel +14

    Ok, but real poodles who haven’t been maliciously coiffed are really normal dogs with healthy proportions and shit.

  28. floridagal1 +5

    Y’all Mr. Floridagal didn’ t know what the Iditarod was or who Balto was until he saw the disney screenshots on the wikipedia article. Obviously I have educated him.