For those of us who have always preferred the company of dogs to humans—and I say this with my affectionate Australian kelpie, Turbo, gazing lovingly at me as I write—these particularly grotesque modern times seem to validate our choice. The human-caused awfulness we witness daily only reinforces this preference.
The Sincerity of Canine Companions Versus Political Deceit
In the faces of newsmaking humans leering from our screens today—figures like Donald Trump, JD Vance, Pauline Hanson, Sussan Ley, Angus Taylor, and Anthony Albanese—we often see deceit, ruthlessness, and mad ambition. None seem able to look us straight in the eye with genuine connection.
By stark contrast, in the faces of dogs, we witness about fifty lovely varieties of simple sincerity. Our canine friends endearingly and unflinchingly meet our gaze, offering a purity of emotion that feels increasingly rare.
The Profound Link Between Humans and Dogs
This very week marks the publication of Fatima Bhutto's memoir, The Hour of the Wolf, which compares humans and wolves or dogs, finding humans significantly lacking. An online excerpt titled The Profound Link (and Love) Between Humans and Dogs explores research into the wondrous "covenant" between wolfdogs and humans, beginning some 40,000 years ago.
Bhutto notes that today's companion dogs remain essentially wolves, with popular Australian names like Luna and Teddy (the top dog names in 2025) sharing with wolves their social drive, animal instincts, physiognomy, anatomy, and 99.96 percent of their DNA. However, one fascinating difference emerges: wolves find eye contact hostile and menacing, rarely engaging in it, while our dogs revel in eye contact with each other and especially with us.
Researchers suspect that over 40,000 years of this extraordinary covenant, humans may have preferred wolves and wolfdogs that engaged in eye contact. Through selection, breeding, and co-evolution, we have developed 'wolves' that love looking into our eyes as much as we love looking into theirs.
It is no wonder that politicians, fleeting figures in our lives interested primarily in votes, struggle to compete for our affections. Wolfdogs have spent millennia becoming attuned to our deepest emotional wants and needs, a connection that transient political figures cannot easily replicate.
Nor is it really the fault of Donald Trump or Sussan Ley that their unremarkable ears cannot compete aesthetically with the spectacular loveliness and off-the-charts cuteness of an Australian kelpie's ears.
Reality TV Revelations: MAFS and Australian Society
With Turbo often beside me on the couch, the annual joy of watching the Australian Open tennis on commercial television's 9Now came with an unavoidable horror. The breaks in tennis coverage were filled with promotions and trailers for the network's depraved yet blockbustingly popular reality TV series, Married At First Sight (MAFS), sometimes touted as a "heart-pounding social experiment."
For those of us usually too haughty or cultivated to watch commercial TV—turning to it only out of necessity for events like the Open—these glimpses of MAFS were a revelation. But what exactly do they reveal?
If unfamiliar with MAFS or the trailers for its 2026 season, one might seek an educational exposure online, such as the salacious medley titled Married At First Sight - X-Rated Rendezvous. The show's popularity, as Nine boasts it is "Australia's biggest show," is revelatory of something about Australia and its people.
Studying MAFS as Social Anthropology
Refined Canberrans, living in the eerily unAustralian bubble of this privileged federal capital, may seldom meet boganesque Australians like MAFS participants and devotees. In the spirit of a social anthropologist, I have been studying MAFS and its trailers with a shudder.
I find MAFS indescribably malignant, managing to debauch and cheapen marriage, love, and even human sexuality—no easy feat. Yet perhaps we aloof, superior Canberrans should be grateful to 9Now for these between-the-tennis trailers, offering glimpses of an Australia we normally never see.
It is a horrifying thought, but one must consider that the show's devotees all have votes. One shudders to imagine what a mind that seeks what 9Now supplies with MAFS looks for in political parties' policies and candidates. Still shuddering, one wonders how the MAFS-loving mind processes the Yes and No cases presented at referendums.
Embracing Australia's Gaucheries
While horrifying, if we are to truly love Australia as it is, we must know and accept its gaucheries. Living in Canberra and leading a cultivated life here creates an artificially gaucheries-proof, vulgarity-proof bubble where one rarely encounters Australians different from oneself.
Thus, I believe I speak for all Canberrans when I thank 9Now for providing, between tennis matches, these bracing and enlightening glimpses of the real, true, actual Australia. It is a reminder of the diverse tapestry that makes up our nation, even in its most vulgar forms.
