Going to the Dogs

An "askal" dog

I have never been so much of a fan for dogs. I can still remember when I was a child that I was chased by a large one and it almost bit me. Good thing, I was able to run fast enough and evade its rabid bite. Though we had owned some dogs in the past, they were the “askal” types, the ones that you really don’t have to spend much on by buying dog food and medicines.

During my one year stint in Italy, I wasn’t very much surprised at Italians owning pedigree dogs since I often see white people with their dogs in foreign movies. But there was something that I wasn’t really quite seeing well. I had before me just a mere appearance before a Nigerian friar pointed it out to me. One day, while we were doing a pilgrimage to the churches in Rome, Fra. James, a Nigerian, narrated to me that while he was in Nigeria, he loved dogs. But, after a year of living in Italy, he became disgusted with them. It got me curious. Then he showed me as we were walking through a park. He pointed out a woman who had dressed up her dog and was kissing and caressing it. Then in a car, a couple had their dog tied to a safety seat, the kind that one would use for children. There were more. Men and women, mostly elderly, were treating their dogs like they were their own children. But the sad thing was that these couples didn’t have children. It was as if they had replaced human affection for a dog’s affection. A few months later, I would later on discover for myself this harsh reality.

During the Lenten season, the Italians have this tradition of having their houses blessed in preparation for Easter. This was one of the apostolates that I was involved in since I was residing in the Parocchia di Santa Maria di Nazaret, in Casalotti, Rome. I was able to visit many elderly people who were living alone with only a dog to accompany them. Their children had already left them behind, some of them no longer even caring for them. Because of this, they could only have a dog to whom they would be able to lavish their affection. Dogs who no doubt would love them back.

But was man created to have a dog as a companion? We read in the Book of Genesis that the First Man was looking for a companion among the creatures in the Garden of Eden. But he didn’t find any suitable for himself. It was then when he was asleep that God removed a rib from his ribcage and out of it, formed a woman, the only suitable companion for man. Adam looked at the Woman and loved her; she was then named Eve. In this little episode alone we can see that only another human creature can satisfy man. Only man can reciprocate man’s basic need for love and belongingness. Dogs can never reciprocate this love.

Love is central in the philosophy of St. Augustine. He emphasized that we inevitably love. To love then is to go beyond ourselves and to fasten our affection on the object of love. He said further that we can love physical objects, other persons and even ourselves. All these provide us with some measure of satisfaction and happiness. The real issue here now becomes the manner in which we attach ourselves to these objects of love and our expectations regarding the outcome of this love.

So what happens when man loves? He expects to be loved in return. Material things can only satisfy him to a certain extent, but it can never satiate his desire for true, authentic love. So what happens when man chooses to love his dog more than his fellow neighbor? He simply deprives himself of that authentic love that only another person can give. He will never find true happiness. A dog can never give them that.

All the more, this shows that something wrong is going on in human society these days. The increase and development in communication has alienated us from other people instead of getting us more interconnected. Narcissism and selfishness pervade as a seemingly common societal consciousness as manifested in our preoccupation over social networks. The self-giving love is slowly going down the drain. Self-serving love is alarmingly on the rise. One can truthfully say that we are all going to the dogs.

St. Augustine of Hippo, Doctor of Grace, Author of The Confessions

In this age of materialism and selfishness, we all truly need to find our roots once more. These roots we must then allow to dig deep into the humid soil of the renewal of the study of medieval philosophy. Particularly, in St. Augustine we can find the root of it all in Love itself. St. Augustine was so enamoured by love. His Confessions can simply attest to that. And this is where we all need to go back to. To go back to the basics, to the roots, to find ourselves, and to know ourselves truly as beings who reflect the image and likeness of God Himself.