Reggie's Blog: An RVing Dog's Blog: Canineland, a new country for dogs

Dad was telling me that today is Independence Day in the United States. It’s like any other day to me. I went out this morning, peed, pooped and sniffed. A normal day for me. But, Dad seemed to want to tell me what Independence Day means to humans. He seemed to want to talk, so I listened.

He mainly said that Independence Day is the day that humans celebrate the birth of their country, their freedom from paying taxes to another country and just a lot of happiness that the USA is here today, a place that humans can call their own.

I was thinking about a canine independence while watching the 4th of July parade at RedRock RV Park

Well, that got me thinking about how us canine members of the USA should feel about Independence Day and the concept of Independence. What do we dogs gain from this arrangement? I do my best thinking outside of the motorhome. I concluded after a long afternoon outside looking at the strange humans waving flags, drinking smelly potions, making loud noises with disgusting little scary things (Dad said they were called firecrackers) and stuffing themselves with more food than they should eat in a whole week that dogs don’t benefit too much from this holiday or from the Independence that humans have.

We are very dependent on humans. We are limited to eating 3 scoops of the same food every meal, every day of the year. We are tied and kept on leashes (most of the time.) We must do stupid tricks to impress the friends of our owners. We can’t drive a car, ride an ATV, or fly in a plane except in the cargo hold. We are subject to hearing our owners tell other people how stupid we are. We must endure a lot of things that humans don’t endure.

That led me to think that dogs should have their own country too. Humans who were unsatisfied with their owners in 1776 because they had few rights wanted to start their own country to gain more rights. I want to use this blog to rally support for a new canine revolution (Dad told me this word meant fighting for your rights.)

Now you must know that I am a non-violent dog. I like to think I’m even really friendly and I even like most humans. I don’t want to hurt them. But they need to know that we have much bigger, stronger and sharper teeth than they do. In fact a dog’s front teeth (humans call them canine teeth, but to me that’s all my teeth) are vicious weapons. Every dog has a set and needs no license to carry them. We can tear meat faster than you can blink, if we want. Our legs and neck are much stronger than a humans, and in my opinion, we are better hunters than humans. We can jump in an instance and push pretty hard. What that means is that we could (if we wanted) make quite a mess with a human’s life (not to mention his face.) So, we are not without bargaining means to accomplish this task of making a new and independent country for dogs. I think if we ask politely and make our needs clear, the USA government would give us a new country. If not, we could form an army of dogs to make our threats clearer to those that would not listen to our reasonable demands. After all, there are about 73 million of us in the USA and almost 63% of human households own one of us. That’s a pretty big group to bargain with.

There's plenty of room for a Canineland in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and Utah.

The way I see it, humans in the USA have a lot of land they aren’t using in Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and Utah. In fact, Dad says most of those states are owned by the USA government. We could make our country in those places that humans don’t live. Our only request is that humans have our permission to enter it. Owners could come to visit us anytime, but they would have to walk. No cars, no ATVs, nothing noisy or smelly like that is permitted in the new country. Us dogs enjoy the fresh air and humans don’t seem to respect that.

I think Canineland could be made from unused lands in Idaho, Wyoming, Montana and Utah.

I propose that we would call our new country Canineland. That would leave no mistake about who it belongs to. I would gladly serve as the Supreme and most Dominant Pack Leader of the land, at least to get things started. I’d get some of my canine friends to agree on rules and we would build a large pack of canine protectors of our land. (Dad says a country needs an army to make sure other countries don’t take it back from them.)

Humans could visit Canineland but not on ATVs.

Canineland would not have many rules. We would freely form packs of friendly canines and find places to live that give us shelter from the cold and plenty of food to hunt. We would only eat as much as we need (this would eliminate most of the fat dogs that you see today.) There would not be any leashes or tie ropes of any kind allowed. Any dog could live in Canineland as long as he or she got along with the other members of the country, or at least in their own pack. Those that were too greedy or too violent would be given back to their owners in the United States.

Humans could walk or ride a bicycle to Canineland. No cars, RV's, or ATVs.

Humans that visited us could stay for maybe 14 days and sleep in caves or on the ground, but no motorhomes or RVs would be allowed. Humans could come visit us using their bicycles. Humans could bring dog snacks if they wanted to be nice. Those that brought snacks would be allowed to visit more often. Humans could not bring those noisy and dangerous things called guns or rifles into Canineland. Also knives (those sharp shiny sticks that some humans carry) would not be welcome. Humans could not hunt. That would be the job of the dogs only. All other animals (except humans and maybe cats and cows) could live in Canineland as long as they didn’t become too unruly or disruptive to our life style.

Humans would be pests in Canineland. No hunting, no guns!

There would be no taxes to be paid. Of course, the Supreme and most Dominant Pack Leader would be permitted to accept gifts of food from other country canines. It’s the least the others can do for him for the hard work of serving Canineland.

There's plenty of land and water in Utah for Canineland! Humans should give it to us for our new country.

So, if you are a canine wanting more freedom in your life, think about joining my canine revolution. Send me email and I’ll let you know the time and place to meet to start our new country. If you can’t get access to a canine ready internet computer, just smell your way to see me in Idaho.

Other animals could stay in Canineland like this Pronghorn. (We need some entertainment.)

Power to the Canines. Long live Canineland! (At least that’s what I think about this today. Maybe after a while I’ll think about this again and let you know.)