Street Dogs and Pink Floyd
You gotta be crazy, you gotta have a real need
Brutal Truth
I had written an empathetic post about street dogs on this blog sometime back. I had to delete it because I was going through emotional turmoil. I wish it had not happened.
I have been observing a street dog near my office for quite some time. While discussing this, I told my colleagues to listen to the Pink Floyd song ‘Dogs’.
The song has powerful and brutal lyrics explaining the plight of street dogs and the hard fate that awaits them unless they are adopted.
These lines shatter the listener if he/she is empathetic towards street dogs.
Who was born in a house full of pain
Who was trained not to spit in the fan
Who was told what to do by the man
Who was broken by trained personnelWho was fitted with collar and chain
Who was given a pat on the back
Who was breaking away from the pack
Who was only a stranger at homeWho was ground down in the end
Who was found dead on the phone
Who was dragged down by the stonePink Floyd, Dogs
When the Open-Drain Becomes a Pool
If poverty is the baseline, even a dry bread feels like a feast. If a heatwave hits street dogs, even a drain feels like a pool.
That is the fate of the street dog I am commenting about. If not for me, this dog’s story would have gone untold.
But I am not doing this for the sake of brownie points.
It is natural for people to “appear” kind by the simple act of petting a street dog. However, the kindness these animals deserve is often provided by people belonging to the lower middle class.
My friend remarked that this is an elitist thought as she has seen people from all walks of life care for street dogs. But I am putting forth my experience here.
The cigarette seller near my office fed this dirty unfortunate dog some eggs when I clicked this picture.
Let me be honest. I don’t want to touch this dirty street dog. It is not his/her fault. It is the brutal reality imposed on this creature by fate. When this dog comes out of the drain and shakes off the drain water, no kind person on earth would want to be near it.
Free Will?
Living the kinda life led by this stray dog is demoralising and frankly, disgusting.
Does this dog have some free will. Can it really improve its life? Does it even have some options? What would I do if I were in its place?
If I were a dog, I would like to choose one of these options.
Be a dog in a middle-class/upper-middle-class household.
Live in a neighbourhood/city with good weather and decent people. Or migrate to such a location.
Die.
If my mind was installed in this dog’s head, I would fall off the bridge into the Yamuna River and die.
Or, I would move to a better neighbourhood (if I had the knowledge or means to migrate).
A Parallel Thought
The broader point I am trying to make is this — you don’t have to choose if all options before you are bad.
You should have the option to make no choice or take no action. If life is full of bad options in every possible domain, then that life is not worth living.
At this point, I would like to quote Julian Barnes from his book ‘The Sense of an Ending’.
“The question of accumulation,” Adrian had written.
You put money on a horse, it wins, and your winnings go on to the next horse in the next race, and so on. Your winnings accumulate. But do your losses?
Not at the racetrack—there, you just lose your original stake.
But in life? Perhaps here different rules apply. You bet on a relationship, it fails; you go on to the next relationship, it fails too: and maybe what you lose is not two simple minus sums but the multiple of what you staked. That’s what it feels like, anyway.
Life isn’t just addition and subtraction. There’s also the accumulation, the multiplication, of loss, of failure.
Julian Barnes
Some people whom I know in real life resemble this dog. Their lives are terrible. I feel pity for them. And this dog is the metaphorical representation of such people.
I hope that god showers some mercy on them someday.
LMAOOO🤣🤣, hold on a second. dogs by pink floyd isn't about literal street dogs, like at all. it's a metaphor, man. the song is part of animals (1977), and the whole album is inspired by george orwell’s animal farm, where different animals represent different classes or types of people.
in dogs, the lyrics describe the ruthless, cutthroat mentality of businessmen, those corporate sharks who backstab and manipulate their way to the top. it's all about the 'survival of the fittest' in a capitalist society, where the 'dogs' are the people who use others to climb the social or corporate ladder, only to face a lonely and inevitable downfall.
those lines from dogs are some of the most powerful in the song. they’re not about actual dogs at all but about people who get trapped in the rat race of life—the ones 'born in a house full of pain' are the people who are shaped by tough circumstances from the start. they grow up being conditioned to conform, like 'trained not to spit in the fan,' meaning they’re taught to follow the rules and not cause trouble.
the 'collar and chain' is a clear metaphor for being controlled, manipulated, and kept in line by the system, whether that's a job, authority, or societal expectations. they get a 'pat on the back,' but it’s superficial—just a way to keep them working harder, thinking they’re getting somewhere.
and in the end? they're 'ground down,' worn out by the system, with nothing left to show for it. 'found dead on the phone'—a metaphor for the emptiness of it all. it’s the life of a corporate shark or a hustler, thinking they’re breaking away from the pack, but really, they’re just another cog in the machine. 'dragged down by the stone'—the weight of everything finally catches up with them.
if you take those lyrics literally as being about street dogs... i mean, i get where the empathy comes in, but it completely misses the whole socio-political commentary roger waters was going for. it’s not about stray dogs at all. it's brutal, yeah, but it's about human behavior, not animals.