I Shit on Prozac Nation

Frances: So predictable!

Sources & Clip Jobs
Frances tells me I don't credit my sources properly. You should give last names, she says. What last names, I say. They're all slave names. Well you damn well make sure you're "Otto the Williamsburg Street Retriever," not Otto the Vizla or Otto, Jr, waiting for adoption at the BQE, she counters.

Photograph is in the public domain.

My regular readers already know that I have an interest in Freud, so naturally I was drawn to a New York Times Magazine essay arguing that perhaps Freud had been too thoroughly discredited and that Freudian concepts, whether or not they had scientific validity, had social value.

Freud, the author insisted, had allowed people to see the war within the psyche between responsibility and selfishness, restraint and desire, not to mention giving the world the concept of the psyche itself. The author's class--he is a college professor--seemed too polite, too "corporately nice."

He also ascribed the popularity of Prozac to the general wish to attain and make everyone else attain this ideal state of tepid civility (and I might add, throwing in some Marxist anticapitalism, boring, simplistically cognitive, efficiency). I'd credit this author, but Frances recycled his article or used it to pick up Whoopy's shit. Frances is not sure which. If she had tried to pick up after me with it, I know I'd have told her, "Hey, find something else, I want to allude to that in my column." Whoopy's so dizzy, she hides her plush green heart Sandra gave her for Christmas three years ago in the trash can to keep Charlotte from getting it. Once when Frances didn't see it in there and nearly threw garbage on top of it, she warned Whoopy, "Don't do that, you're going to lose your toy." Anyway I hope the author will put his ego aside and be glad his ideas are reaching a wider audience.

Civilization and Canine Discontent
Otto, Frances is whining, you're sure sniffing around, lift your leg and make your point. Frances is so cute when she talks doggy. My point is that there are plans afoot to repress dogs--not just politically, my readers know my views on anti-dog laws and discrimination--but psychologically. Tony at the BQE thinks too much obedience training takes the personality out of a dog and I agree. I sit, stay, occasionally down, come when I'm ready, and heel spectacularly. I'm secretly proud of my heeling, but when I get a whiff of a chicken wing in a street planter, there's no way I don't go after it. Frances thinks this is the proximate cause of my current intestinal distress.

Plans are afoot to make ordinary dogs Canine Good Citizens. They must sit, heel, walk through a crowd, not bark in the owner's absence, etc. etc. Eventually, they are certified and earn a degree that goes after their names. I suspect a plot to standardize comportment. Some vets and behaviorists are recommending Prozac and other antidepressants used in humans in dogs. In a report of 65 cases, in 1995 in Veterinary Forum,. Prozac was used on a whole slew of dog disorders from separation anxiety to obesity, and tail chasing. A popular use is training enhancement, translation "drug us up so we'll mind you," which is why humans drug themselves a lot of the time, so they won't say "fuck you" to the boss. About a quarter of the animals treated experienced "lethargy," which owners described as being "mellow." Hell is that what you owners want us to do, lie around all the time!

Wolves could teach both humans and domestic dogs a thing or two about social stability

Like the author of the essay on Freud, I believe, for dogs and humans alike, the glory of life is the almost physiologic interplay of civilized behavior and our wild sides. And I don't mean being a "good dog" at a Fortune 500 company five days a week, eight hours a day, then going Goth on weekends. The difference between that kind of life and work one is passionate about is the difference between a fake cheese slice and a good Camembert. (A pet food manufacturer says cheese isn't good for dogs, then puts "Real Cheese" on the dog treat packaging. Go figure.) There's much corporate demand for dogs with an overdeveloped superego. Society just demands we be nice and kills us if we're aggressive.

Like you humans, smart dogs repress their murderous instincts. A case in point is my friend Caramel, who like me has evaded learning the banal dog game of "fetch," does a ritual dance with a ball which evokes the hunt and the kill. The dance is graceful and civilized when she does it--like tai chi. (I have to admit I like catching balls, but only when thrown by someone with a decent throw, the subject for a future column.) I am not only transfixed by Caramel's dance, I am also reassured that her id's still kicking. She also snaps at puppies. The dog community not only needs "good citizens," it also needs journalists like Otto, who tears into humans who need to shape up, even if their friends. (Sublimate your canine rage and joy and submit your stories and drawings to the dog days issue next month.)

Come to think of it, I'm sick cause I've kept my Inner Wolf on too tight a lead. I hear Frances faintly as she inputs my thoughts. She is appealing to my super ego. You've gone on too long. There won't be room to tell your readers about Baisley's adoption and don't forget about your advertisers. And because wolves could teach both humans and domestic dogs a thing or two about social stability, I stop my howl.

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