The hound without a jaw is a hound that cannot bark or bite.

Yes he can: breathe, see, think, love, move from here to there; shit, piss, walk and wag tail in joy, but bark or bite he can not.

Probably this is only the imparting, if not projecting, human-ness into such a hound to say his identity is intermingled with his more characteristically "dog-like" actions, and I even encourage this: let my doggy be thy mirror. Like this, or not, its a condition of most people I know to see the function, the action, as the identifier among animate objects. So here-to-fore Hound'stooth may stand for: a mouth that can't mouth.

Now the unfortunate notion of a creature (here present) such as a dog that can't bite or bark, appears to you as spontaneously and unexpectedly as it did to my own eyes some years previous to this. While ambling wide and watery-eyed through the many galleries of the Vatican I happened upon the most sorrowful beast in marble since the Dying Slave: this dog my Houndstooth. His bottom jaw broken, from God knows when, displaying the inner marbling of his marble. His eyes sustaining the same harsh vigour and nobility that his maker had endowed him with all those years ago when he saw his hound as a symbol of first and foremost an unambiguous beast of a hound, a dog that does not even allow the minutest doubt over his mandible. 

How did my Houndstooth's jaw fall off? I could say heavy-handed moving men or even an unintentional uppercut from a speedy cleaner but no, it is one of these two options, if not both: he yawned too thoroughly, or bit down too firmly. 

A statue such as my hound is not a human, and yet the human would mimic the stoney beast (perhaps "petrified"); so that when function falls off in the human they will feel the need to present as though it hasn't, like my noble seemingly unaffected hound. Maintaining his composure and proud tilt of the head, sitting like the king of it all even though he can't hound.

 I know many a figure like that, if I may refer to a highly scientific anecdote, well then I might here now: When I graduated from my bachelor in 2012 in the depths of Ireland's banking crisis and deepest recession (I fib, the 80s were worse I'm told) I took the welfare allowance of the state, and each day, if not all days,  I'd stumble from cafe to bar writing and rattling (fueling both by caffeine) one needs a reason to sit anywhere; even caffeinated rattles suffice. It was on my daily route of lingering about that I began to spot some like-minded characters doing the rounds of Waterford city's cafes, but now most peculiarly to me one particular figure springs to mind: this man in his 50s, with substantial hair, dark tinged with a little gray,  just sitting dead-eyed over his coffee's edge, sitting/pinned into a repurposed Church style boot of dark oak by a large table which he claimed  daily for himself, in Geoff's bar of Waterford. 

The most distinguishing detail found in this character was not his lingering through late afternoons, and my not catching him doing the same routine in other cafes earlier in the morning, but it was the distinct air of shame which hung about him. his self-conscious presence always seeming to think "they're wondering why I'm not at work", please bear in mind this city had one of the highest unemployment rates in Ireland. 

That man is almost like my hound: one in that I'm wildly projecting into him for the sake of my own illustration, yes, but two (and more pertinently): that this man was a faux-worker, a statuesque form to his family of: the man of purpose heading out at nine, coming home at five, "how was your day love?" "oh hectic". 

This was a phenomenon of the time, I recall it's denouncement on Irish radio, people taking months to tell their partners that they had been laid off and were hanging around cafes like idle teenagers at shopping centers, but that's what teenagers do at least it. It was a hard thing to measure but it happened and I mourned their performance, and yet could find no solution.

--with his pointy hound's tooth on display, my unfortunate beast postures something fierce, a thing of ability and drastic function, but in truth he can't even nibble at his fleas or his dust mites (in Houndstooth's case)

--sitting prone with his Hound's Tooth on display one could almost mistake him for a beast of function, even action, untill we see with review this statue can't even suggest a function