Page:My last friend, dog Dick (IA mylastfrienddogd00deam).pdf/27

Rh it and despises his present condition. And he is right. I forget all that I have deprived him of when I think I have done him a benefit by giving him what I have had to give. I do no more than give him what belongs to him by right. I justly owe him the support because I forbid him from getting it himself throughout the world as do his brothers who have no masters. I really owe him the care and caress, because I have kept him in a prison, and I've imposed a time limit on him, a discipline, a collar, a muzzle, and thousands of other restraints and duties which reduce his life to that of a college-student who is always watched by some vigilant eye and regulated in all his steps, and even in his thoughts. I justly owe him the Doctor's visit and the warm weekly bath when he is washed with soap, because I have condemned him to breathe the smoke of the cigarette; and I deprive him of the speedy races in the pure air, by which he would never suffer from colds, nor indigestion.

I have not the right to the gratitude that he is giving me. And more than that I haven't the right even to reprimand him for those things which I call his faults and oversights.