(October 4, 2004) — Dog: A man’s best friend. More like a man’s best foe. Walking down the street in the morning, you always see people walking dogs. Cute, right? Cute until they have to pick up their dog’s feces and place it in a plastic bag. Why would someone want to do that? Because our society places way too much value upon the four-legged animal. Dogs have the luxury to enjoy many things that even some humans can’t. They get their hair groomed and cut at a dog beauty parlor. They have cookie stores exclusively for when they want a treat or two. They even have a dog resort where owners can leave their pets in a luxurious place when they go out of town. They receive gifts on their birthday and on other special occasions such as Christmas. According to the American Pet Association, out of the 44,874,121 dog owners in America, 31,589,887 purchase Christmas gifts for their dogs. Instead of spending all this money on dogs, why don’t people spend it on people? If you want to spend your money so frivolously, please go donate some money to the less fortunate (humans, that is). There are millions of people in the world dying of hunger, who don’t have a roof above their head and don’t even have fresh water to drink. Yet people spend thousands of dollars on not just taking care of their dogs’ basic necessities, but giving them a life of luxury. Take a walk to downtown LA and you’ll see homeless people living with merely cardboard boxes as shelter and all of a sudden a person walks down with their freshly groomed pet with a pretty pink bow tied onto their ear. Where are our priorities?