19TH CENTURY DOGS!

INVENTOR DOGS

     During the great Industrial Revolution of the 1800’s, human development soared to magnificent heights.  Suddenly machines began spitting out vast amounts of intoxicating smoke to decorate our skies and spinning metal gears ripped fingers off low-paid workers to aid the human race in efficiency and ease.  These were considered modern times as farmers gravitated to the cities in vast numbers.  For society, this was the future, and the inventions that surrounded it have made human lives more productive ever since.

     Alexander Graham Bell…Thomas Edison…The Wright Brothers…Henry Ford… This was just a small smattering of names that suddenly caused time to blast forward at an alarming pace.  And it all happened in the Nineteenth Century.  Oh sure, there were inventors in times past (remember the wheel?) but they were few and far between.  Along with airplanes, elevators, light bulbs and miraculous modes of communication, came fits of hysteria, paranoia, and strange new medical terms such as *“Railway Brain” and *“Railway Spine.”  With the notion that their pocket watches could instantly stop if they crossed under an electric street lamp, the common human was terrified.  There was too much movement and, for some folks, it was simply too fast.

     Akin to their human counterparts, Dog Society and Dog Culture also saw spurts of amazing growth during this feisty era.  Inventor dogs were the bark of the town around the community water bowl and the city fire hydrants.  Because of a lack of resources available to canine inventors, (such as electricity and proper research laboratories), dogs tended to use a lot of sticks and found objects for their ingenious creations.  One such invention seems to have turned the world of dogs upside down on their ears!  A dog, by the name of Buggwugg in Tennessee, noticed his master’s boot one fine afternoon.  As it eminated an intoxicatingly stinky and sweaty smell, Buggwugg grabbed it by the laces and hurled it across the room.  The leather was tasty to chew and Buggwugg could hide it almost anywhere in the house to his master’s dismay.  Buggwagg invented a grand toy!  And like electricity, the concept of a boot as a toy zipped across the world of dogs at an amazing speed.

     Another powerful invention, a stick, was noted by scientists and animal behavioralists as the most popular dog toy invention of all times.  Believe it or not, dogs didn’t figure out the fabulousness of the stick until the 1800’s.  Occasionally a dog would chase a stick in the past, but it wasn’t until the Nineteenth Century that a dog named Bully trotted proudly with a stick in his mouth to the patent office in Washington, D.C. and demanded a patent for his new invention.  The barking was too much to take and Bully bullied his way into world fame on April 18, 1885.

     Soon earth-shattering inventions followed: a sock, a pinecone, a stuffed animal with the eyes ripped out, dirty underwear…  The list of joyful joys was incredible!  Okay, all these inventions were apparently toys, but we must give these crafty dogs credit where credit is due.  Most human inventions were aimed at work.  Dog inventions were aimed at play.  And this insured canines everywhere from having grotesque fits of melancholia and hysteria.  Dogs may have been sent to the doghouse from time to time—but they sure weren’t ever sent to the sanitarium!

*What were Railway Brain and Railway Spine?  Funny you should ask.  These two curious conditions were legalized ailments, which could be brought to court against a city’s commuter train companies in the 1800’s.  Basically, they were a headache and a backache!  Victorian people, who began using the new commuter trains of the Guided Age, feared their brains were shaking around violently in their heads by the speed of the trains.  (Oddly, no one seemed to think riding a horse would cause the same problem.)  And the concept of stress, or Freud’s famous anxiety disorders, simply hadn’t been invented yet.