I apologize for the histrionics. I have never had a wife or children, so you can understand how strong my bond could be to a dog. "Only a dog"? Bad as the world is, and seeing no obvious improvement as a prospect, I have little for which to live. I exist in a community that I despise, and in the most objectionable time in American history since the Civil War.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.