ABSTRACT
Stray dogs, abandoned dogs, lost dogs, feral dogs, street dogs, homeless dogs, rescue dogs, shelter dogs, stolen dogs – there are many descriptors of dogs related to the property narrative, facilitated by the predatory drift towards the bounded animal. In the domestication story, then, the theory of that dog as scavenger, or even thief, raises an interesting presupposition. G. Deleuze and F. Guattari appear to presume the narrative of pet-keeping as a sentimental enterprise of the modern age, marking cats and dogs as oedipal animals, thus setting themselves on an uncertain path. Smuggling dogs were countered by customs dogs in their patrolling of borders. Chris Pearson notes that both dogs were “agents in the construction and contestation of borders.” Smuggling dogs were thus transgressive, breaching borders as agents of immorality, straying from the centre, outlaws. At the same time, the border, the ban, produces that outlaw – a legal fiction.
