Forget the Mailman, P-Dog: bite Ramage instead.

Apparently, Ramage’s perspective on animals is different than mine.

It is interesting to me that Ramage associates behavior as the Act/Motion hybrid his pet, P-Dog, possesses, and then concludes a paragraph later that P-dog is unable to Act. Is it not safe to assume that since behavior is conceived of both actions and motion, any being that exhibits signs of behavior must be capable of action as well? Furthermore, in chapter one, Ramage admits that “there is no such thing as pure Act. Every Act retains elements of Motion. No act is totally free, no purpose is entirely my own, no product of an Act is entirely new.” Ramage has contradicted his own definitions in less than fifty pages. If, Act and Motion are never really free of each other, and P-Dog’s behavior is a mix of the two, P-Dog can surely act.

Ramage says that when P-Dog “does not do what she has been trained or bred to do, we may choose to call what she has done misbehavior . . .” If P-Dog’s misbehavior is not prompted by training or breeding, it is voluntary. No one tells P-Dog to eat her owner's new pair of shoes; she acts on her own. Maybe Ramage has never owned a dog that had separation anxiety: one that drags garbage through the house because they were upset at being left alone. Clearly, P-Dog must be extremely obedient, or Ramage doesn’t pay enough attention to his pet.

“Dogs are better than humans because they know but do not tell."

- Emily Dickinson

Another point Ramage brings up is that P-Dog cannot have an identity because she does not have a language. I’m assuming that either the dog is mute, or Ramage is deaf. Just because a dog does not speak the same language as humans does not mean they don’t communicate. Dogs bark when necessary. Some bark just to make noise. Consequently, certain people do the same. Is P-Dog really without an identity? Does P-Dog secretly worry that she might be a flamingo?

Ramage is writing about rhetoric – not on the psyche of dogs. So, unless somewhere in the back of his book there is a list of credentials proving he’s an expert on animal psychiatry, I’m not buying it. Maybe Ramage should stick to food and baseball references, and leave the damn dog alone.