The dog should not be fed at the table. This only supports the begging.
Begging… So the dog is a beggar – – Of course he is! He is not a human being and therefore has no place at the table. That’s why he can’t make himself the sausage sandwich. He cannot go to the refrigerator when it suits him and satisfy his appetite. He is not allowed to hunt at all. So there is nothing left for him but to ask… or to beg. Depending on how you want to put it.
He is in a world alien to his nature, where he must be alimented by man in order to survive. If he lived in a dog world, perhaps he would be a charismatic leader. A sage of high social skills with instincts that made him a king of his pack. A nobleman that the other dogs would approach with the utmost respect. Able to lead his companions through thick and thin. A being who would be trusted in a dog world without hesitation. He would be this alone from his nature, which he could live in a dog world.
With us he is and remains a child who can never grow up in the human world. Be he ever so adult dog. He will never be able to fully grasp the nature of human rules and there will never be a place in this world for a dog that could be among humans as an equal. Alone because we are of different species.
Thus, he is still made a fool for his food by having to sit, bark or do manikins beforehand. If he draws attention to himself without being asked, then he is a – perhaps already unseemly and insolent – beggar. Made by us to it. But we forget that very easily. And we look down on him with reproach and annoyance. Still give him the blame for the situation and his corresponding behavior.
Aren’t there also people whom we look down upon in this world with reproach and annoyance? Aren’t there those people who should actually live in another world and could perhaps do great things there, while in this world they are like helpless children? People who are also denied a place at the big table of our society because they bear so little resemblance to us? Because their nature could not work here, but only somewhere else. Then don’t these people also appear to us as beggars?
Shouldn’t we then always see both sides? That the dog and this person are right as they are. And that it is only because of our world and our dealings with them that they seem so low to us and they have to behave like beggars?