I feel like a lot of people might want to choose this guy but I couldn't resist writing on this "hard-hitting" graphic I found from USA Today (*if you press the next button, this graphic is number seven out of 20). The first thing that struck me was that I found it under the 'news' tab, which seems like either a gross miscalculation or a joke. By all technical standards, this does qualify as news, but why anyone would care if dogs are more or less smart than we think-- well it's beyond me. Speaking of which: the topic of the survey itself is extremely confusing. It took me a few good reads to understand what it was trying to say, and it wasn't until the third whirl around I realized that the bar graph I was looking for is on the dog's belly. Im not sure whether this was due to how cluttered it is, or how they just chose different shades of the same color to represent the bars, but it was a task nonetheless.
In it's defense, USA Today does not claim to be America's most serious publication, but there's a fine line between entertaining and insulting. If this is truly what the American public wants from it's newspapers... well I guess I'm one citizen who doesn't belong here. If I was flipping through the paper and picked this up I know exactly what my reaction would be after reading just the title: "'Are dogs more or less intelligent than we think they are?' ... WHO CARES?!"
The graphic isn't total crap, though. I liked that the artist (are we calling them artists now?) posted both the opinions of dog owners as well as non-dog owners. The picture is endearing in its color and goofy cartoon dog faces, too. These two jolly pups tell me that USA Today isn't trying to fool anyone- no one's life has been changed by this poll. Also, the bolded sentence to the left was a real lifesaver as far as deciphering this beast went.
-Roxanne Nickolie
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