Hi AppleScratch,
I feel your concept of the dog being 'natural' because it was a natural extention of human intervention, to be stretching the idea of what is natural and what is artificial.
I am guilty of that too. I like to say that everything in the universe is natural. How could it be otherwise?
I suppose it is important to define ones terms concerning natural and artificial.
Otherwise technically if it exist in the universe it is natural.
Just look at Global warming, it is as natural as can be!! Or at least the Oil companies and the Koch brothers would have us believe that.
"You were not there for the beginning. You will not be there for the end. Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative" William S. Burroughs