There are some bad dogs out there, with dark hearts. Did they get that way because of their environment ?  Or is it that they were born defective, or evil if you will. That's a tough question, it's difficult to control for the variables.  Maybe the evil doer never got any puppy love.  Maybe they're just doggin it, and don't deserve any understanding or compassion.  It's difficult to know where the distinction between a good dog and a bad dog lies, given the complexities that the whips and scorns of time offer to the animal negotiating his way through life's challenges.  A mean, ornery dog might be that way because he was abused.  Then again he might just have a few wires loose in his brain.  Dogs don't "strategerize" about things like humans sometimes do.  Not many humans would grant a dog the benefit of a soul or any chance of eternal life.  I guess that's why a dog tends to take it a day at a time.  If a dog is hungry, he'll take your food when you're not looking.  He doesn't have to worry about morality, or any future black mark on his soul.  If a dog was to invade another dog's yard in order to control its food supply, it would just do it if it could get away with it.  On the lower animal level it's all about power and opportunity, don't you think?  

     You humans have larger brains, greater intelligence, and souls so I imagine that you don't have these kind of "lower" animal problems. You do tend to premeditate and "strategerize" though, and this conscious decisiveness  makes your evil act a couple of  shades darker than a dog's spontaneous indiscretion.  Despite the occasional bad dog, in general we dogs have empathetic emotional systems, large hearts and we lack the organizational skills to form armies and invent weapons of mass destruction.  That's a plus for us, even if we do steal a bit of hot dog here and there.  I guess both of our species have our challenges in making light out of the darkness. We complement each other in important ways; we prop up each other's weaknesses. When you're training us to be good dogs and submit to your authority, be sure you're guiding us in the right direction. We'll try to do the same for you.  

Thanks, 

Buffy