To a lapdog in a pink frilly jacket

My ancestors scrambled to invent fire, weapons, walls, villages, all in a desperate attempt to avoid having their throats torn out by the shadowy packs of your ancestors.
Cat’s speed and cunning, bear’s strength and jaws, snake’s cold and calculating strike, and man’s ability to coordinate an ambush by the entire pack at once - all belonged to the wolf in his day.
And the superhuman powers of the monsters which still haunt our nightmares - vampire’s fangs, ghost’s deathly stealth, demon’s inhuman howl, bogeyman’s remorseless patience, basilisk’s stare, goblin’s swarming hordes, Archfiend’s cunning, werewolf’s all-too-human bloodthirst - all are but pale memories of your long-ago reign.
But now I see you emasculated: your knife-edged intelligence blunted to marshmallow; your terrible strength brought so low that a rat could eat you alive; your baying now a squeak; your balls cut off for Man’s convenience; your Pack taken from you; your majestic pelt shorn so you must keep warm in a pink frilly jacket that a twelve-year-old ballerina would scorn for being too girly. The few wolves that still live do so only at Man’s sufferance, and only in places that Man has not yet chosen to inhabit.
O Man’s best Friend, Man’s oldest Enemy - I behold the final humiliation of a vanquished foe, and I feel no triumph, only pity and shame.

And also fear.

For when I see what Man once was, once strove to be - the godlike strength, wisdom, courage, love, and self-sacrifice displayed by our ancient heroes – I can’t help comparing to the heroes of today, as seen on T.V., and thinking of wolves reduced to Chihuahuas.
When we have bred out all our own power, intelligence, and ability to live as a Pack - in favor of docility and good looks - what new species might arise to usurp us as the alpha, the lords of creation? Dare we hope they will be kinder masters than we are?

© John M. Munzer