Upsetting Day: Brendan McGinley’s Dogs of Glory! 🌭

Greetings, future civilizations of the next species to rule the earth (Magpies? I bet it’s magpies). Congratulations on finding and deciphering this article deep within the 1-900-HOTDOG archives here in the beautiful Mountains of Madness. You surely have questions about today’s video, “Dogs of Glory,” a song ostensibly for children by Christian musician Jim Steager. I can contextualize it for you as the owner of a very smart puppy that is part Chihuahua, therefore at war with the entire physical world, and thus a presumable Christian.

I know it sounds like the rad battalion that will clinch Union victory in 2029’s Civil War II Da Streetz, but the dogs of glory are simply a metaphor in song for the devotion required to follow Jesus Christ. Steager wants listeners to trust and admire their savior with the same faith a dog would. Just not my dog, who will tow me three blocks to sniff poop, and pointedly ignores me when I tell him to stop barking at every living being in the universe.

Ah, sorry. He was the human version of…I guess the nearest phrase your language has for messiah is Death Migration Victor Prime. Jesus was a Judean carpenter with a side hustle as the Son of God. His message of peace has brought comfort to the billions blessed by the violent sacrifice required to spread it. 

It’s a forgivable misunderstanding, but Steager does not begin the video as a hybrid human-dog chimera. His face has been painted to resemble a dog’s by a talented artist, so that when children contemplate his performance, they will wither to know this world is broken. Only once their souls know true terror will they cry out for a savior, and they will become faithful servants of THE LORD THEIR GOD.

First off, I’m sorry that your ancestors’ bones made such delicious stock. Second, Steager’s awaiting eternal salvation, a feast of the soul given after you die. I’ve never met a dog who would turn down a bone now for the promise of two bones later, so mark these as the last fully human words Steager will ever sing.

Immediately after, at the 34-second mark, you can see his eyes flash with hidden knowledge when he beholds his new fursona staring back at him. Poor fool, his invitation is accepted, and his face-sac deflates slightly as The Dog of Glory pries him open from a side we cannot imagine. The paint is a veneer on a collapsed wall now. 

Yes, but never in a worldly manner. By donning the skin of a Christian Canine and howling the sacred invocation “Hallelujah,” he had constructed a transformation spell in the name of Christ, and powered by the rocket fuel of children’s faith. I don’t care how you dress it up in pet shop sounds and facepaint, “Dogs of Glory” is not a children’s song, except in the sense that adults can’t hear its backmasked message to shred flesh for the Blood God. It starts off as a beautiful meditation on faith you would play at the funeral for a beloved civic figure who died of Old Person’s Disease—suddenly it’s ripped open by the guttural cries of starving beasts. Steager has let trust in a higher being deceive him into chasing the invisible bone of salvation. 

Bewildered, Steager now cascades back and forth between dog and human skills. For the rest of the song, Steager is now a manimal.

It is actually better to be a dog than a human! The whole world is your toilet and strangers love you. You have no idea what an influencer is. Nobody tries to convince you to go to church, because they think you don’t have a soul. 

Watching a man’s personality disintegrate in real time, we realize they may be right. Before we’re one minute in, Steager spits hot fire about looking both ways before crossing the street, which is not a famous quality of dogs. My pooch is terrified of cars, yet frogger-lunges every busy corner. Perhaps Steager is a seeing-eye dog? Is that what this is now? God is blind and we are leading Him? 

Oh boy, just wait. God throws the stick of salvation into traffic as a test of faith, but also keeps Steager on the Leash of Love (not what it sounds like, unless it is). Then he’s let off-leash to dance a mad farewell to his humanity. Are you confused? I spent high school Friday nights at Catholic youth singalongs, and I am goddamn-dogman baffled.

Which brings us to another point in our Christian faith: God spelled backwards is dog, so…y’know. Right there, that whole thing. What does that mean for us in our lives with Jesus? Discuss quietly in groups while I slip out for definitely not a cigarette. 

But seriously, it’s like he’s losing his literacy as the dog side consumes him—

There it is. As Yrolg the Dog-Thing consumes his very being, he loses his ability to read, and can only pine forlornly for the Bible that once comforted him.

Basically, God’s love is the only true peace, but also anyone full of it is spiritually on fire and can only be soothed by the same cause of—I—you know, I’m still lost. Weren’t we just in a flowered pasture by a pond? Then a street, but now back at the water? Look, the best I can figure is Steager wrote this song while walking his dog to the park and back. 

Magpies, I don’t know what kind of theology you’ve constructed for yourselves, but I hope it doesn’t require you to constantly affirm that Nestfather is perfect. Frankly, I think it’s weird that His mighty wing will only shelter you if you praise His flawless plumage. I don’t have all the answers, but it seems to me that a perfect magpie deity would neither need nor want constant adulation from lesser birds. 

I’m going to be honest with you, magpies. There’s a reason my society has vanished from this earth. We’re so busy trying to become Dogs of Glory, we’ve let malevolent forces consume our abilities to read and reason.

I know, and the dumb part is we had actual dogs the entire time! Are there still dogs in the future? They’re great! You don’t need to pass a devotional test to be happy in their presence. My dog is an absolute jerk to other dogs and people and my cat and squirrels and birds and this rad wooden statue in my office he thinks is a burglar. Socially speaking, he’s as flawed as a person can be. But thanks to him I enjoy all the benefits Steager sings about, and I don’t have to die to receive them. I don’t need to convince myself my obnoxious dog is a perfect entity. He loves me right now, and keeps me from losing my goddamn mind every time Twitter tells me the Ku Klux Kaukus just approved $32b of my taxes for a migrant orphan trebuchet. 

Hunh. You know, now that I think about that makes so much more sense about His message and sacrifice. The only thing I can tell you about the historical Christ is that He definitely wasn’t a Chihuahua.

Brendan’s beyond saving, but you can still help out friend of the site and very funny comedian Vanessa Guerrero with an emergency donation.

Magpie credits: Ken Billington

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Seanbaby and Brockway started 1900HOTDOG as a way to grift government processed meat subsidies, and along the way accidentally assembled the best comedy team in novelty phone number history. This week all articles are free in honor of the fantastic columnists that make this site a place to be treasured and feared in equal measure.