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WotD: A Dog’s life
We are so lucky to live in this time and age.
We may sometimes feel that we are living a dog’s life, but in reality, it’s nothing like the life people used to lead not that long ago.
To live a dog’s life means your life is very difficult and unhappy, with little relaxation and leisure.
Way back in the day, there used to be a proverb that went, ‘It’s a dog’s life, hunger and ease.’
These days most dogs are kept as pets.
I’m not sure about what your dog does, but Sorachan sleeps in the kotatsu, plays with the neighbourhood kids, goes on two walks a day, has health insurance and gets a shampoo every six weeks or so.
Oh, did I mention she has about 140 tsubos (about 462 square meters) to run around in?
That’s what my dog’s life is like today.
Go back even a hundred years ago, and a dog’s life had a much different meaning.
Dogs were working from sunrise to sunset, either pulling a sled in the North, guarding sheep against stray wolves or working on farms to help herd animals.
My father led a dog’s life.
When he was a young boy, he delivered bags of coal from a horse and cart with his father.
At ten years old, he and his brother had to fill hundreds of 50-lb bags of coal, put them on a horse-drawn cart, drive them to the customers, then unload and carry them into the houses.
Though it was a dog’s life, my father didn’t know it at the time.
It was the way things were, not only for him but for everyone.
My mother’s father was a typesetter for the local newspaper.
He would walk home after working a 12-hour shift covered in nickel or zinc and ink.
I never saw that, but my mother said he was always shiny when he got home.
That was a dog’s life, and he didn’t know any different, either.
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Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least a 6th-grade education (age 11).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 80.
The higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100, the easier the passage is to read.