You
know, as I wander the world, and indeed my own neighborhood, I see a surprising
number of “professional” dog walkers on the streets, ambling along awkwardly with a
handful of not especially happy-looking dogs. I
even see flyers stapled to trees and telegraph poles from people offering their dog walking
services. I guess there must be a
market, and I suspect a really good dog walker is hard to find.
And in
fact I find something not quite right about this. I mean sure, I can see that if you’re very
old or feeble or sick it might be permissible to get somebody else to walk your
dog for you, but otherwise it seems to me it’s something you really ought to do
yourself. Nobody put a gun to you head
and forced you to have a dog, so now that you’ve got it, do your duty, and
abase yourself by picking up the poop while you do it. Here is a picture by Hunter S. Thompson, from
the 1960s, titled, “Sandy Walking with
Agar” – I’m guessing she’s not a professional dog walker and I’m guessing this
was in the days when people got much less upset about dog poop. And like you, I can only guess what’s happened to the poor dog’s ears.
Somehow I can’t imagine that Victoria Beckham walks her own dogs, much
less picks up their poop, but it does make for a good photo op, thus:
