A Man Without a Dog

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/16/opinion/trump-dog.html

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To the Editor:

Re “The Trumps, the Poodle, the Sex Scandal” (column, Oct. 12):

I confess. I love Gail Collins. Her keen analysis of current events and delightful sense of humor have, on more than one occasion, helped me get through the near apocalyptic times in which we live. Rarely, however, is her wit more trenchant than when she repeatedly observes the correlation between political competence and dog ownership.

Who can minimize the near dispositive effect that Mitt Romney’s treatment of Seamus (strapped on the car’s roof) had on the 2012 election? Thus, her reporting the revelation in Ivana Trump’s new memoir that Donald Trump has apparently never had his own dog (though he had to live with Ivana’s poodle, “and Donald didn’t like him,” Ms. Collins writes) explains a great deal about the predicament in which our country finds itself.

Perhaps The Times could conduct a poll that would undoubtedly show that dog ownership usually results in a rise in a politician’s popularity. In that Donald Trump often relies on polling to guide his decision-making, such data might induce him to get a dog.

Such an acquisition could be a matter of life or death, because it is hard to imagine someone with the compassion to be a true dog lover leading us heedlessly into World War III. I realize that this strategy would be unusual, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

ROBERT F. BACIGALUPI, NEW YORK