I may have opened a can of worms, (a delicacy in the dog world) when I told my neighborhood doghouse owners association about my readings on the French and American Revolutions.  This is not standard intellectual  fare for the canine crowd, but in my role as senior, sage, sapiential French Standard Poodle of the neighborhood, it is my duty to provide my fellow dogs with philosophical underpinnings to the impulses they might be experiencing at any given moment.  This often results in me just making stuff up, but this is what a philosopher does, no? 

When dogs congregate, we often bark about our living conditions; our food, housing, what types of cars we drive in.  This comparison often results in hurt feelings for some dogs, as their human masters vary in the time, attention and material goods that they provide to their pet dogs.  Some dogs have the run of the house, others are kept in small cages, others in kennels or crates.  Great disparity is often the stuff of "revolution" and I'm afraid I may have provided a spark to the kindling yen for freedom that all dogs possess, when I told the dogs about the French Revolution rallying cry, "Storm the Bastille."  Pretty soon the dogs were all in a huff; panting, barking, feverishly exhorting me to take on the role of general in our new dog "revolution."  Down with cages, power to the pups, fidos for freedom.  Barking "Storm the Bastille" over and over again, the dogs maintained their frenzy for some time until I was able to settle them all down, and we congregated down by the pond to plot our strategy.

Now that I had riled up the pup populace, I had to find a way to channel their energy in a positive direction.  Sometimes it's best to let sleeping dogs lie. The French and American revolutions were human endeavors, and many died and sacrificed in the cause of "freedom."  Freedom is good, but so is a warm bed, food and shelter. If the dogs revolted and obtained "freedom" they might end up out in the cold, or worse yet in some shelter that resembles the Bastille more closely than their individual restricted spaces do. I told them to go home and contemplate their situations, consider their relationships with their masters, and think about the future that might be if all fidos are freed from human servitude.  We would meet again the next day.

It was a more subdued crowd that gathered on the banks of the pond the next day.  Each dog related a story of his or her's masters kindness, they spoke of how good the food was last night, of the tummy rub they had received that morning.  The revolutionary fervor had abated. It was replaced by a new appreciation for the limits of ideology. Freedom might be an absolute concept to some in the human world, but to us dogs it's all relative. The young dogs were the most enthusiastic supporters of freedom, they have yet to experience the limitations that real life imposes on high falutin ideas.  The old dogs knew better, and realized how good the average dog has it compared to the "free" undomesticated animals in the wild.  I guess I must be more circumspect when I explain my "intellectual" ideas to the dogs of the neighborhood.  Ideas are great to talk about, but real life is another thing altogether. The grass isn't always tastier on the other side.

Buffy 
French Philosopher Laureate Dog