Gadgetguy sends this one in. Seems counterintuitive. Shouldn’t he be out trying to save more cats?
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Actually saving cats would be hard work.
Putting a cat in danger so you can be seen to swoop in and “save” them is much easier.
I was unsure on initial reading of the role played by the use of pork (indeed, a whole pork chop apparently) as reward. But the resulting behavior by the dog, which the man warns of in panels 2 and 3, must be, as Darren has explained, the whole setup of fake heroism — like the proverbial deranged firefighter who lights fires they then can heroically put out.
Recall reading about rescue dogs deployed after a natural disaster. Finding only dead bodies, the dogs were extremely unsettled. Finally the rescue workers semi-buried a few live volunteers and let the dogs find them.
Similarly, the old “It’s Gary Shandling’s Show” had an episode guest-starring Lassie. In the end June Lockhart shows up to claim her, cheerfully commenting that on a slow day they have to toss a few kids in the lake for Lassie to save.
A few weeks back the For Better or For Worse strip had the replay of the “April falls in the river and Farley dies a hero” arc. Some people had reported that they would skip that, but I couldn’t see how that would work.
FBOFW has one of the worst Comment sections. Several people actively hate the strip, the characters, Lynn Johnston, etc. Others delight in posting spoilers. This was rife with both.
Some were reasonable objections to the action, like how a dog managed to hold a child in place in a rushing river rather than being swept far downstream. Many were calling for the three or four year old child, who just had a near-fatal dip in a Canadian river in spring (brrr) to be scolded or punished.
Then again, some want the child beaten for every supposed infraction of good order. And Elly Patterson is the worst mother in the history of mothering. Did I mention how bad the Comments section is?
Anyway, no beefsteak for Farley, just a hole in the ground.
This reminds me of The Cobra Effect:
The story goes that many years ago, in colonial India, there was a cobra infestation in the city of Delhi. So the British created a bounty for cobra skins. They thought by offering a reward for dead cobras, the public would solve the snake overpopulation problem. But instead of capturing feral cobras and killing them, people started farming cobras for their skins.
This reminds me of the movie The Boy (2015), where the protagonist lures animals to their death because his father would give him pocket money for each roadkill. There’s also a Bollywood movie about a murderer who, in his childhood, killed his fellow villagers so that his father, an undertaker, would have work to do.
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Actually saving cats would be hard work.
Putting a cat in danger so you can be seen to swoop in and “save” them is much easier.
I was unsure on initial reading of the role played by the use of pork (indeed, a whole pork chop apparently) as reward. But the resulting behavior by the dog, which the man warns of in panels 2 and 3, must be, as Darren has explained, the whole setup of fake heroism — like the proverbial deranged firefighter who lights fires they then can heroically put out.
To add to the previous two comments: I think this is a case of a Perverse Incentive — see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive
There’s historical precedent for this behavior. https://boingboing.net/2023/03/19/the-hilarious-story-of-1908-fake-rescue-dog-who-pushed-children-into-the-seine-and-then-rescued-them-for-steak-rewards.html#
Recall reading about rescue dogs deployed after a natural disaster. Finding only dead bodies, the dogs were extremely unsettled. Finally the rescue workers semi-buried a few live volunteers and let the dogs find them.
Similarly, the old “It’s Gary Shandling’s Show” had an episode guest-starring Lassie. In the end June Lockhart shows up to claim her, cheerfully commenting that on a slow day they have to toss a few kids in the lake for Lassie to save.
A few weeks back the For Better or For Worse strip had the replay of the “April falls in the river and Farley dies a hero” arc. Some people had reported that they would skip that, but I couldn’t see how that would work.
FBOFW has one of the worst Comment sections. Several people actively hate the strip, the characters, Lynn Johnston, etc. Others delight in posting spoilers. This was rife with both.
Some were reasonable objections to the action, like how a dog managed to hold a child in place in a rushing river rather than being swept far downstream. Many were calling for the three or four year old child, who just had a near-fatal dip in a Canadian river in spring (brrr) to be scolded or punished.
Then again, some want the child beaten for every supposed infraction of good order. And Elly Patterson is the worst mother in the history of mothering. Did I mention how bad the Comments section is?
Anyway, no beefsteak for Farley, just a hole in the ground.
This reminds me of The Cobra Effect:
The story goes that many years ago, in colonial India, there was a cobra infestation in the city of Delhi. So the British created a bounty for cobra skins. They thought by offering a reward for dead cobras, the public would solve the snake overpopulation problem. But instead of capturing feral cobras and killing them, people started farming cobras for their skins.
This reminds me of the movie The Boy (2015), where the protagonist lures animals to their death because his father would give him pocket money for each roadkill. There’s also a Bollywood movie about a murderer who, in his childhood, killed his fellow villagers so that his father, an undertaker, would have work to do.