I'm sorry, but I can't love your dog. Make that any dog. Animals just aren't very important to me. I know one day history books will point to the likes of me as an example of the primitive thinking of ancestral humans, but even so, back off with your beagle.

I've always tended to disapprove of those supposedly heartwarming news stories in which people rescue pets during natural disasters. I know I'm meant to be overjoyed that the dog is alive, that someone clutched a puppy to his chest as he swam through a flood...but I'm always suspicious, always thinking what about the granny clinging to the log behind you? Because I swear, there probably was a little old lady somewhere off screen left, but you know, that swimmer just saw that cute puppy! And people want to save puppies. And it's considered humane to do so. Humane. A peculiar word. When I think of humane, I think of kindness to humans, not animals.

Don't get me wrong: I don't hate dogs. I will pat them. I will even compliment the pleasing color or intelligent eyes of someone's hound. And I myself have had fond, if slightly distant relationships with dogs of my own: the name Pasha, as well as an old framed photograph of a sheepdog-husky mongrel sitting on a rock, can certainly bring a happy tear to my eye.

But I draw the line at elevating people's dogs to the status of children. I also draw the line at finding elevated turds in my shrubs. In Crabtown—make that Dogtown—my attitude is highly unusual. And even beyond Crabtown, I'm finding my kind less and less represented in the world. Most everyone these days seems to be a serious dog-lover, and I just no can tolerate.

Last year, two dogs knocked Crabtot flat onto rocks at the bank of a river; in both instances the dogparents excused their beasts with a classic "he's very friendly." As a result Crabtot doesn't like dogs. And I know enough to know that I mustn't encourage her fear or dislike of dogs. So when someone's slavering woolly mammoth bounds over to us in streets and playgrounds, I try to stop her from screaming. I try to make her think I love dogs.

And then, last week, a dogmommy at a park said some very unusual words to Crabtot. She said, quite cheerfully, "You don't have to like dogs." It was an oddly objective thing for a Dogtown dogmom to say, and Crabtot took to this and repeated it later in the day. "You don't have to like dogs, Mom," she told me. "I don't like it when they lick me," she added. Now that's what I call humane. Granny clinging to log, or puppy stranded on the shore? Methinks Crabtot won't hesitate to make the right call. (Not to mention potentially saving her parents the joys of vacuuming pet hair. How humane is that tot?!)

Happy Thanksgiving, all. May you wrestle your turkeys well and nobly, and partake of the festivities with much cheer. If your guests are pests, may I suggest a parlor game? (Thank you, Heidi.) I have heard Mafia is just perfect for dispensing with pesky relatives.