Barking

Did you ever go to the mall and walk by one of those pet stores with a pen full of playful puppy dogs rolling around in the shredded newspaper? Remember how you smiled when you saw them rolling around and mauling each other in the spirit of play? What a great feeling! It takes you back to those times when you were a kid, and rolled around in the grass with your buddies.

Now, on some occasions, there would be one puppy over in the corner- all by himself - barking incessantly at some small kid with his nose pressed against the glass. For some reason, this freaks the dog, and he gets fixated on demonstrating his "I'm the big dog" take-charge spirit. Eventually, the bystanders think there may be something that the kid is doing to aggravate the dog. The crowd takes a step back and begins to examine the little boy watching the excitement unfold. There is no apparent reason that they can see that would command so much attention from the little barker. So they go back to watching the other puppies in the free-for-all and ignore the noisemaker.

If you wanted to go into the store and purchase a dog to take home to your kids, you would probably pick up one of the playful bunch. But on the way home, it will cross your mind how sad it is that no one will ever end up choosing "the big dog".

The irony is that all he wants is attention, but gets none.

That's really sad.