Things Alaskans like: Dogs

I was going to write a post about predator control, but I'm spending way too much time writing it when I haven't even finished breakfast yet. You'll all get an earfull (eyefull?) of things like `predator pits` and `Stable limited cycles` some other day.

Instead, I want to help you all make friends with some Alaskans, especially if you're not an Alaskan yourself. There's no better way to make friends than to have mutual interests, so I've made a handy list of things that Alaskans like. Studying these things will help you start conversations with Alaskans, and eventually win their affection. For my inaugural post in this series, I've chosen DOGS.

Alaskans love their dogs. Frequently, they love their dogs more than they love their children. This is not hard to understand, because it's illegal to leave kids in a box in a fenced in kennel outside, but dogs seem to like it. Dogs also don't have an long shelf-life. If you have a bad dog, after 8 or so years, you can get a new, better dog. If your children are brats, you can't trade them up for nearly 20 years! You can have nearly three different, non-overlapping dogs in that time!

Dogs eat dog food, but only if the Alaskan is really rich. Otherwise, dogs eat a mixture of fish, left over meat, small rodents in the yard, cats, and scraps from the table. Sometimes, really rich Alaskans feed dogs both dog food and poor Alaskan food. A great place to get rich Alaskan dog food is from Cold Spot Feeds. Places like Cold Spot Feeds are good places for Alaskans with dogs, since it allows them to go to a place to talk to other Alaskans about their dogs. This may seem unusual, because they also talk about their dogs when they aren't at designated dog-discussing places, but I assure you this is part of Alaskan dog ownership.

Alaskans like to feel their dogs are working animals, but they don't like doing work themselves. Many people have dogs that skijore, mush, hunt or pull sleds, and they will talk about how good their dogs are at theses activities, even if their owners do not engage in this activity themselves. This is because Alaskans know the dogs do the activities on their own, while the owner is sitting inside watching TV. Dogs are very pro-active like this, which is another reason Alaskans like dogs more than children.

Alaskans are better at making dogs than they are at making new Alaskans. They just leave their unspayed female dogs (often referred to as `their bitch` because they like using an otherwise dirty word in an acceptable way) outside overnight. About 1 in 10 times, when Alaskans bring their `bitch` back inside, or put them back in the kennel area, the dog will later make more dogs. Pregnant dogs are easier to deal with than pregnant humans, because you can leave them in a dog house too. If you try to leave a pregnant human in a dog house, you will get shot in the face. This is another reason dogs are better than humans.

Alaskans are so much better at making dogs than humans that there are more dogs than humans. There are about 680,000 humans in Alaska, but since every Alaskan owns at least one dog, there are probably 1,000,000 dogs in Alaska. It is very important that Alaskans keep their dogs from voting, because there are so many more dogs than people. If dogs voted, the PFD would be paid out in the form of dog treats, which only a few Alaskans eat.