It's dog eat dog here.

[MoonRiver]

Some of the dogs are pampered and protected, with golden collars, plush bedding, expensive wardrobes and all the yummy, nutritious food they can eat. Those dogs don't want to fight but the big dogs surrounding them will save the pack at any cost. The protector dogs are big, well fed and mean. Then there are the strays. Now those poor chumps would love to get some of the goodies inside the gilded dog mansions, primarily because they are starving on the streets. Knowing it's basically impossible to scale the walls and take on the big dogs they usually just skulk outside waiting to grab scraps from the garbage. But once in a while desperation drives them to plan an attack. When this happens, as in all wars, there are casualties. But in this world no veterinarian will tend to strays' wounds (A doc has to make a living, after all.). A fight for the strays literally means life and death. Big dogs, on the other hand, have instant access to all the finest medical care they need. They will usually live to fight, eat and mate with their well coiffed bitches another day.

Survival of the fittest doesn't even begin to apply here. No way is this the level playing field found in nature. And the scary thing is it's the world I began seeing unfold in 2000, and so far have found little evidence that it is not still alive and well.