Attribution: Charles Marion Russell , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper hopes to avoid professional therapy as he adjusts to the new—to him, historical information that the Lewis and Clark expedition bought and ate 193 dogs as a source of protein, and in a diary, Meriwether Lewis wrote: “Our party from necessary having been obliged to subsist some length of time on dogs have become extremely fond of their flesh; it is worthy of remark that while we lived principally on the flesh of this animal we were much more healthy strong and more fleshy than we had been since we left the buffalo country.”
Lewis went on to say he much preferred dog to venison or elk and that William Clark was “the only man who did not appreciate the taste of dog….” and was once sorely insulted when a Naz Perce’ Indian threw a dog at him.
While the keeper is currently immersed in a writing project that has him looking at the revisionist history of the unspeakable abuses foisted on Native Americans by arrogant White invaders, it does not seem necessary that he learn about the Lewis and Clark gang eating all those dogs. Sometimes too much information is not good.
And the keeper hastens to assure Kickass that as a cast iron doorstop dog he is safe when it comes to table fare.
Photo by Bill Stokes