My dog is right, as usual

Becoming less jet lagged, thank the gods.

I had a thought this morning that is more or less the conclusion of an idea I've had for awhile - that while you don't get to pick your family, you do (at least in my case) get to choose which of them you spend time with, and you also get to choose your friends. I'm also fortunate in the regard that I actually want to spend time with my immediate family members, which is a huge plus for a variety of reasons. Moving on.

Hans, and all good dogs, have their own familiar behavior... while he didn't really choose me so much as I chose him, he has picked the rest of you people and decided that he loves you (or doesn't).

A lot of people forget that dogs are pack animals in the wild, and their family loyalties lie therein; there's none of this mandatory family love that seems to be a more or less human social construct - wolves have more of a mutual contract of defense and protection, with a genetic predisposition towards the well-being of the pack and the understanding that the weak will be sacrificed should push and shove come together. To be fair, some dogs have been so domesticated and removed from that element that this is no longer a part of their functionality. If you've ever seen a retriever hide behind its human and bark at the door, you know exactly what I'm talking about (it's not restricted to certain breeds, but some do show it more than others, in my experience). This is why there are different breeds - there are as many kinds of hounds as there are beers and individual tastes.

That said, having a Doberman has taught me a fair amount about the importance of loyalty. While he may be a complete fucking goober the majority of the time, Hans is also a killer, which is a quality I've also encountered in a few humans in the Army - fun, mellow, entertaining, but let someone shoot at or otherwise threaten their people and watch 'em go. (Side note - I'd actually say this applies to most of the paratroopers I've met, and probably the infantry community as a whole. Of course, some are scarier than others, as with canines.) This is when humanity is at its finest and when dogs are, well, just being dogs.

The point I'm rambling towards here is that while the civilized community can lead to "hive mind", the savage origins we all have in our ancestry give us quite the opposite. Hans still has it, and I can think of several of my close friends that wear that shit on their sleeves, while many others keep it hidden until necessary (and some don't have it at all, but that's not the point). Personally, I think camouflage is a useful thing, but I'll trade loyalty for subtlety any day.

The difference between us and our noble four-legged servants is that we get the luxury of picking our pack.

I know who's in mine, and I'm proud to say that we'd all shed blood for one another if we haven't already.

Much love. Off to human, be good.