Does every dog bark?

16 Apr 2026

Not everyone loves this piece! My feeling is that this page of text is not exactly subtle use of imagery and makes it excessively clear there’s no literal cat or real sandwich and it’s about the way that information asymmetry is used to embed power imbalances in society. It’s okay to have feelings and sometimes those feelings might be uncomfortable.

Don’t ask me what I think about your pet. I am not interested. “Isn’t she a beautiful girl?” you say. I don’t know. You obviously feel that way. Do I have to agree with you?

The locals.

It’s not that I don’t like animals. We’re fortunate to live in an area that has lots of wildlife around the place. There’s deer, there’s various birds, I saw a hedgehog last night. What all of these things do when your dog comes crashing through is they scurry off and hide, so we don’t get to see them. Just see an endless string of identical Old English Sheepdogs or whatever the fashionable pet is.

*

I keep myself to myself. Honestly the lockdown in 2020 was the time of my life. People who know me now know only what I choose for them to know. No I’m not making that sentence better. It wasn’t always this way. There was a period where I had a desperate need to be seen, to be looked at. The dog that chased the cats. Buried deep down there’s the urge to be public and opinionated. I must be right and I must be loud, vicious and precise. For now I keep that animal restrained.

All the loudest voices are those who weaponise ignorance. Where are the socialist attack dogs? Sorry but kind and compassionate is never going to chase the fascist neanderthals back to their caves. It is my deep belief that someone needs to verbally rip these shouty white podcast bros to shreds and it’s hard to resist the thought that it should be me. Could I achieve something, will I stand up and find it’s too late?

*

Minding its own business.

I wrote this piece outdoors, walking some public spaces and being bothered by expensive pampered pets. Here’s the thing owners always say when they don’t control their dog: “Oh, don’t worry, he’s friendly.” Well, I’m not. So fuck off.

I find it hard to get into the mindset of people who have pets. Maybe it’s “well, things didn’t go so well with humans, but let’s try spaniels. Let’s see if I can build a relationship with one of those.” You’re giving up. That’s all well and good, and I don’t really care if it’s a fish or a hamster that you just keep to yourself. You can be more robust than this! It’s okay to feel isolated. I find a lot of joy in that peace. When a human gets a cat it’s a cry for help. “I’m not having fulfilling sex.” I think a dog says “no one listens to me, so I need something that has no alternative.” But what do you have to say?

*

There’s a lot of emphasis on the economy going up. Numbers need to be bigger. The big money knows how to earn either way though. The key is to know something other people don’t. Price in factors that aren’t understood generally. Place the bet when you have the exclusive knowledge, then distribute that info and bet the other way, lock in your profit. The casino doesn’t worry about your pile of chips. They worry you’ll pick the right moment to cash those out. It’s all about what I know now while you have no knowledge.

If your success is decoupled from the wider picture, there’s no reason for you to act in the general interest. Your profit is derived from knowledge asymmetry and the ultimate is becoming the decision maker. Do you have the expectation that leaders share your motivation? Who’s walking whom?

*

Here’s the way it should work with shit. I’ll keep my arse clean and you deal with yours, and we don’t need to discuss it or consider it further. I don’t love dealing with my own shit but I do. I don’t deal with your shit. One of the few things that I like about my friends is that they’re all capable of wiping their own arses and flushing their own shit. I don’t need to bring something into my life that can’t do that. But if you choose to, you can keep it the fuck out of my way.

Dog people, they wander around, don’t they? They walk around carrying bags of shit. You always see them carrying bags of shit, or picking up shit, but you never see them binning bags of shit. And you always see trees full of bags of shit. I’ve walked past a whole bunch on the way here.

*

There are more of us than there are of them. Such is the nature of the predator-prey relationship. If I do a day’s work, I can claim I created that value. If I manage a dozen people, I lay claim to some proportion of that effort. Even if you do a really huge job you’re not going to be creating six figures of value independently. If your tool devours the jobs of a hundred thousand minimum wage workers though, that’s when you’re really able to scale.

Collective negotiation works because it resolves the asymmetry of knowledge between employees and employer. So long as the boss keeps the workers divided he can maintain order. It’s not different if you’re running a shop to a country. So long as everyone on the ground level maintains a healthy mistrust of each other, the situation is stable. You remain the top dog and they can fight over scraps.

*

Here’s one. You’re at the beach or the park or something, you’re having a picnic with your family or your friends or what have you, and someone’s wet Labrador leaps its way through the middle of you, fucking up your lunch, fucking up your day. And the owner comes out: “Oh sorry, he probably just wants a sandwich.” Yeah. So did I. Dog owners believe that their right to take an animal with them trumps your right to sit and have a nice fucking time.

Head down.

I see plenty of birds and things like that killed by cats. Hedgehogs killed by cats. Why have you got a cat? Do you have a mouse problem? You don’t need to have a cat. Do you have a cat to entertain you? To make a friend? I’m not interested. Cats shit in my garden and when I catch one I’m gonna fucking eat it. I will put it in a sandwich, I’m gonna do that for fun, to show them who’s top of the fucking food chain.