The Burden of Owning a High-Class Dog
Humorist Bill Nye reflects on the social anxieties of owning an English mastiff that clearly views his owner as a social inferior.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
As I have advanced socially I have tried to give to the great world an idea of my progress by the kind of dog I carried. I lately got a large English mastiff. I presume that he is no larger than some other English mastiffs, but to me he seems larger, and I feel also like apologizing to him for the raw state he finds things in. He seems to know that I started out with no advantages. He is so dignified that he won't even bark. His name is Flossy. We live in the timber where it is pretty thick, and I have had to clear off a few acres for Flossy to wag his tail on. I have looked into his great, sad eyes for hours and tried to discover one responsive look of love, or even respect, but I have not seen it. Once I laid my coat down by him and told him to watch it. He looked at it sadly, read the name of my tailor on the loop, shuddered, and burst into tears. It is an awful thing to be cowed by a dog. I do not sell him because I doubt his worth, but because he is a constant reproach to me for my simplicity of manner.
“It is an awful thing to be cowed by a dog.”
Bill Nye, a famous humorist of the 1890s who resided in the Seattle area, captures a timeless Pacific Northwest trope: the struggle to maintain one's dignity in the presence of pets (or people) who seem to judge our socioeconomic standing. His wit highlights how the Gilded Age obsession with 'breeding' and 'status' extended even to the creatures in one's own backyard.
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