Today I am going to confront one of the many great quandaries that has come out of the explosion of internet use in the past twenty years.This question which is posed in the above picture has been a long favorite of mine. While this question seems simple at first, it prompts some deeper intellectual musings that are worth spending a few moments considering.
First ,however, let us address the problems with the two models of how a dog should wear pants that the picture presents. The dog on the left obviously has all of his legs covered but his posterior is shamefully exposed, whereas the dog on the right has a more presentable bottom in exchange for allowing two of its legs to be uncovered. I will concede that the dog on the right looks more aesthetically pleasing in the fashion it wears its pants, but are aesthetics the only thing that matters when we consider whether something is right or not? Surely not. Therefore let us discuss how we can determine which form of pants is better.
I think that the next most logical step is to decide what truly makes an article of clothing be considered pants. If we are able to adequately answer this then we will easily be able to know which dog wears its pants correctly. In order to uncover the true nature of pants, we will examine the only model that we know wears pants on a regular basis: humans. So what purpose do pants serve on humans? Clearly, they provide protection from the many harsh elements that this great earth assaults us with. They also bring warmth during those inevitable chilly days. But these purposes do not help us find out how a dog should wear its pants.
The purpose for which we are looking for is modesty. On humans, pants conceal both the entirety of the wearers two legs and also their posterior, so why should this same principle not extend to dogs as well. Now I have heard some argue that the hind legs of the dog are distinctly different than its front legs but this objection is easily dismissed. A leg is a leg. Let me explain. Even though one would recognize that dog's leg and a human's leg are distinctly different, they would also know that they are both legs. The English language does not have distinct names for each variation of leg across the animal kingdom. They are all simply called legs.
Therefore, since we have established that the nature of pants is to cover both the entirety of all a being's legs and also that a dog possesses four legs, we can give an educated answer about how a dog should wear pants. I contend that neither dog presented in the picture above are wearing pants. Real dog pants would consist of a combination of both depictions. The pants would extend above the four legs, like the picture on the left, and also fully cover the animal's posterior, like the picture on the right. Now we have some dog pants that are worth praise and admiration.
