April 27, 2004

Lisa: Clearly April 27th 2004 was a Big Day for these dogs. I'm curious about the events that transpired and if it's an annual celebration or just a one time thing. Was it a wedding? Maybe it's a graduation. My dad and I took a similar picture when I graduated from college. Does this event have anything to do with birds or birdhouses? Perhaps they put on a play; that would explain the congratulatory flowers and the fact that they're posed with a confidence normally reserved for thespians. I think that must be it, they're actors and they just put on a stage version of the 1955 blockbuster, Trial.

Jesse: The thing with dogs is that by now we're so used to viewing them as objects that we totally neglect the idea that they have any kind of inner life, which is doubly harmful because on the one hand you have St. Bernards trapped like fairy tale princesses in cramped 28th floor apartments and on the other you get the almost-as-bad backlash where fussy owners turn their pets lives into a revolting carousel of play-dates and monogrammed bowls and therapy sessions where 30-second bark samples are modulated through a little machine and Rover ends up prescribed a regimen of doggie tai chi to "let his soul breathe".

Following in this tradition of ignorance England's parliament decided on April 27, 2004 to legalize dog marriages. This might have been a landmark moment for the species but they were kind of distracted by the strange smell of pickled herring wafting across the Thames, which provoked a frenzy of snouts poking out of cracked windows all over London. Nevertheless thousands of dogs were married in mass ceremonies all over the country and at first things seemed to be going pretty well, with tons of money being made off of dual leashes with heart patterns and commemorative painted plates like this one. But within a few weeks dog-on-dog bitings shot up 403% and the pubs were crawling with depressed collies trying to drink away their newfound sorrows. The whole country started to feel like a much sadder version of that dogs playing poker painting and people started to realize that their dogs didn't really find this whole thing as cute as they did. Thankfully with the rise in popularity of cat speed dating this whole thing was mostly forgotten and the marriages kind of fizzled out naturally.