A Mind Gone to the Dogs

I may not be a “dog person” in the strictest sense of the word, but neither am I a puppy hater (these are, according to Urban Dictionary, “currently competing for the worst group of humans that have and will ever exist, along side Nazis, neo-Nazis, the KKK, and Muslim extremeists [sic]”). Nobody wants that.

I say this to establish my credibility as a sincere, ingenuous individual before I express my genuine bafflement at a particular feature of dog-person society: the granddog.

Now, I can understand the desire to validate individuals who are childless by choice or necessity, giving their family unit equal affirmation, but this method seems to present certain nominal difficulties.

Namely, what do you call your son’s dog’s puppy? Your great-granddog? But what if your son also has a daughter who also has a dog? They can’t both have the same name! Furthermore, what would you call yourself?—do dogs have grandhumans or grandowners? And then, where would one even begin to apply the degrees of removal?

Dog people of the world, I beg you to resolve this source of cognitive dissonance! My peace of mind depends upon it.