canine knowledge

What is the connection between Kafka's animals and his assistants? They are not the same. Assistants do lots of things but reflect little; they are more figures like waiters who hover in the background- America is full of waiters. WB calls the assistants 'unfinished'. By contrast the animals reflect at length; certainly both Kafka's Ape and Dog do so in different ways. But there is a relationship between animals and assistants. First, it does not seem quite right to locate the creatures in a remote non human zone even though they are often, in the main, solipsists; they have no roles like messengers or go betweens. The Dog has an epistemological mission: to define dog knowledge. The scope of the inquiry is limited; in the same way that Kantian thought categories are spatio-temporal, the Dog's are alimentary; instead of 'how is experience possible?' the question is 'how is food possible?'
The Dog comes up with a couple of ideas but is dimly troubled less by getting the wrong answer than by having only one topic: food. This is the predicament of the 'unfinished' like the the builders and workers of the Great Wall of China. No one can remember why it was built. Try to understand why but only up to certain point; then avoid further meditation. The animals, assistants and Chinese do not just have bad memories; it is their job to be unfinished.