‘Don’t accept your dog’s admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful.’

Ann Landers

Sitting next to us in a Bedford Street coffee shop was a large middle-aged woman with a small dog on a leash.

‘Here darling… have some of this.’

She was feeding the dog a ham and cheese croissant… the same thing we had just bought, for $12.78.

Down the street came an oriental woman with a terrier on a leash. She marched along briskly, the dog keeping up.

From the other direction came a man in a jogging outfit. He too had a dog on a leash, this one a Great Dane, who pulled him along.

“No pets allowed,” said the sign on the door of the pastry shop. “Except personal support animals.”

Inside, was a yellow lab, wagging its tail. On the other end of its leash was a couple, neither of whom showed any sign of impairment.

“I wish I was a rich man’s pet dog,” an old boss used to say. He was in charge of the painting crew for a small builder. One summer, he hired us to do the high trim work he no longer wanted to do.

That was fifty years ago. And now, the world — or at least that part of the world represented by Brooklyn, New York — is full of them. Rich men’s pet dogs, that is. We spent last weekend in the city, where the canine kingdom has pulled off a remarkable triumph. Their working days are over.  They neither guard, nor hunt nor herd. Instead, they have convinced humans that they should have pet dogs and treat them like children.

Meanwhile, real children are disappearing.

Grosso modo, sub-Saharan African and Arab nations have the highest fertility rates; the average Nigerian woman has five children. East Asia has the lowest. In South Korea, for example, the statistical average for births per woman is 0.8.

At that rate, the South Korean population will be cut in half by the end of the century. In neighbouring Japan, the population has been falling for the last 15 years and the president warns that the country ‘may not be able to sustain a functioning society’.

Europe and the US are somewhere between the extremes, but new births, to native-born women, are generally less than replacement level. Russia has a fertility rate of only 1.4 births per woman. This is so alarming that Russian lawmakers have proposed to ban night-time internet use. The fertility rate for New York State is 1.7 children per woman. That is already well below the 2.1 ‘replacement rate.’ But in the New York metro area, the rate is the lowest in the state.

And in the USA, guess how many net new jobs have been given to native-born Americans over the last five years. The answer is ‘zero.’ Not because there has been a shortage of jobs. In short supply instead were the ‘native-born Americans.’ The Wall Street Journal:

‘More women in the 35-to-44 age range across all races, income levels, employment statuses, regions and broad education groups aren’t having children, according to research by Luke Pardue at nonprofit policy forum the Aspen Economic Strategy Group. 

‘Birthrates among 35- to 44-year-olds give demographers who study fertility an early look into millennials’ changing approach to parenthood. But these researchers also look closely at women over 40, reasoning that if a woman doesn’t have a child by then, she is more likely to remain childless.’

Walking around the streets of Brooklyn, we saw hundreds of young women of childbearing age. But few bearing children. We saw only one tiny baby… and he was carried by his father in a front-mounted holster.

‘It’s a dogs’ world now’, says Elizabeth. The dogs are well fed. They’re given vaccines, supplements, and organic food. They are enrolled in training programs…and given emotional counselling when necessary. And they’ve even trained owners to trail behind them and pick up their poop.

‘Some people around here even arrange playdates for their dogs’, explains our local source. ‘They take them to the parks where they meet up with their doggie friends.’

‘And they become so attached to their pooches that they can’t go anywhere without them. They put them in the shopping carts when they go to the food stores. They hold them in their laps at the theater.

‘I even know one family that has a blind dog. They take him out for walks, guiding him so he doesn’t run into signs or trees. They are seeing-eye humans working for the dog.’

Regards,

Bill Bonner,
For Fat Tail Daily

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