Author’s note: The following column contains graphic depictions of irrational emotional ties and devotion to dogs, and is dedicated to my dear friend Ralph Timm, in order that he may understand…
Wouldn’t you love to have been there when Man domesticated the first dog? Can’t you just picture the scene, as the remnants of a roasted carcass lay scattered around the fire, the now gorged Man watching the mangy canine creep warily towards the scraps? He takes pity, grabs a leg bone and holds it out toward the animal, saying the Cro-Magnon equivalent of ‘here you go, boy’. As the dog takes the offered food, the Cro-Man reaches out to scratch the animal’s head. When contact is made, a bond will be formed between Man and dog that will bind them together forever – wouldn’t you want to be there to witness this historic moment in evolution?
Wouldn’t it make you want to shout? I know I would - I’d shout, “STOP! What do think you’re doing?” I’d be able to prevent mankind from ever having to throw money into one end and shovel what comes out of the other end. What a service to I’d provide to society - no stains on the carpet, chewed up shoes, holes dug in the backyard, wild chases through the neighborhood in pajamas, or lying awake listening to howling, barking or yapping all night. Talk about a positive impact on history! But then I’d look in the face of that dumb mutt, cowering with the tip of his tail wiggle, wiggle, wiggling between his legs, and my heart would melt. I’d grab the meat shank from Cro-Magnon, hold it out to the mongrel and mumble something like ‘Okay Spot, do all your business outside the cave and I’ll feed you forever…’
What is it about dogs, anyway, that allows them to attach themselves so firmly and permanently to our hearts, regardless of the reality of our experience with them? Bring together any group of dog owners, and almost without exception they will relate stories of misadventure and canine malfeasance that make the rational mind ask why in the world would you want a dog, anyway? They have to be the stupidest creatures in creation, with just enough intelligence to digest food. No other phrase in the English language is more redundant than “dumb dog”. Some folks I know came home to find their Golden Retriever standing on top of the dining room table. Apparently, he had climbed up using a chair, but wasn’t smart enough to use the same chair to climb down. This same hound was also discovered sprawled belly up on top of the coffee table, sound asleep. It’s a good thing the first thing we do with puppies is name them. If people waited a few weeks to name the animal after a personality trait or dominant characteristic, you’d hear a lot more GetOutFromUnderMyFeets, Stupids, GiveMeThats and Quit-Its at the park than Spots, Rovers and Buffys. You know why dogs greet you like it’s been ages since they’ve seen you every time you walk into a room? I honestly think it’s because they’re so stupid, they don’t remember you’ve only been gone 30 seconds!
Of course, there’s no fun like being around a dog in a thunderstorm, when they really do odd things. We were dog sitting for a friend when a storm blew up, and the dog disappeared. I got involved in something else and put the missing dog out of my head until I went in to use the bathroom. I heard a noise from behind the shower curtain, peeked behind it, and there she was, shaking in the dark in the bathtub! Sleep through a storm? No way, when you’ve got a dog pacing back and forth across the foot of your bed – under the covers, of course. Or you get the other extreme, when they sit on your pillow and pant. I fail to see how hyperventilating in the dark relieves fear of storms, but the beast seems convinced it helps. I guess that’s better than the dopey mutt that sits in the middle of the room and howls like a coyote. Another guy has a monster that he practically has to wear padded gloves to feed. One peal of thunder, though, and this snarling, growling beast turns into a quivering, whimpering wuss, running to hide under the nearest bed. It seems that a direct relationship exists with the size of the dog and how big a baby they become during thunderstorms.
Does anyone know when dogs were crossbred with goats? They’ll eat anything. I heard about one that ate a box of D-Con, the mouse poison. The vet said he would be dehydrated for a couple of days, so give him all the water he wanted. The kid filled a 5 gallon bucket and the dog drank it dry, plus another one the next day! We watched a neighbor’s dog eat a Koosh ball. We called the vet, who told us if the ball got stuck in its colon it could kill him. Turned out he just left kaleidoscope deposits in the back yard all weekend. Another hound goes to the vet for x-rays to rule out hip dysplasia and voila! the hips are fine, but there is a finishing nail in the intestines. Operation follows to retrieve the nail, but 10 feet of intestines prove to be too big a haystack to find the needle (nail) in. The owner is charged with examining droppings to ensure that the nail finds its way out. You haven’t lived until you’ve tromped through your back yard “examining” dog doo to look for finishing nails. Or Koosh balls. Or loose change, or Legos, or shoe buckles or any one of a hundred other things Hoover has managed to suck down his throat!
Did you know dogs are immune to salmonella? They can eat all the raw chicken they want without fear of getting sick – which they do at every opportunity. Turn your back on a dog with raw meat on the counter and you’ll be making reservations for dinner. Why they get so excited over people food is beyond me. Every time I give my dogs a scrap of meat or cheese, they snarf it so fast they can’t possibly taste it, but they always give you that look that says I don’t know what that was, but can I have some more?
The single most indelible sound in all of dog ownership has to be that of ‘Ol Rex throwing up. Heard once, it sears itself permanently into the synapses of the brain. I can’t count the number of times I’ve snapped awake from the deepest sleep, fully alert to the distinctive uh-ooomb, Uh-Ooomb, UH-OOOMB noise, like the Bellows of Hell, growing from the innards of the beast. Invariably, a dog will get sick in the middle of the night, so you almost always have about 30 seconds in which to stumble through the dark to find Poochie and guide her to a non-carpeted piece of floor before the awful retching sound that signals the arrival of the contents of the stomach. Without human guidance, they also have an uncanny ability to use the uh-ooomb interval to go directly to the least desirable spot in your house on which to barf. Unleashed and unshepherded, I’ll bet Lassie could find the only area rug in an empty airport terminal if she was airsick from an inbound flight. Amazing. Gross, but amazing.
Every dog I’ve ever had loved to ride in the car. It never mattered which door I used to let them in, they would immediately jump into the driver’s seat with that dopey oboy oboy look on their face. Apparently they thought they were better drivers than I (though we shall not address the validity of that claim here), since they never moved. I was left standing in the street shouting and waving at them to move (which the neighbors always found amusing). It was either that or try to shove them out of the way while squeezing into the seat and getting the door closed – not unlike being the third person into a phone booth – where success is largely dependent on the number and size of the beasts in the driver’s seat. My pastor’s dog loves to ride in the middle of the bench seat of their minivan. When they come up on any bridge or overpass, the dog watches it intently, and then jumps over to the window as they go under, barking and trying to bite the bridge. The drive from where they moved was seven hours – can you imagine how many bridges and overpasses there are between Nashville and Peoria?
And what is the deal with dogs and sticking their heads out the window, anyway? I’ve had to start a fire on the front seat in January to keep warm when Pepper just HAD to have her face out the window in the fresh air. I almost lost a dog with the first car I got with power windows. I was driving along and all of a sudden the dog started thrashing around in the back seat. I looked back to tell her to settle down, and noticed she was standing on the window button, closing the window and choking herself. From then on, it was lock the doors, seat belt on, lock out the power windows…You can tell parents of toddlers these days by the little visor thingy on the back window of the car. Dog owners have a back window covered with dog slime and paw prints.
In twenty years of marriage, we haven’t been without a dog for more than a total of seven months. Much of that time we’ve had two. We feed them too much people food, let them onto the furniture, take them for ice cream, stand in the rain with an umbrella over them while they potty, plan vacations around them and pretty much let them take over our lives. When they get too old and we have to put them to sleep so they can die with dignity, we cry and mope around for days. Are we certifiable? Probably. Defective gene? Likely, but please don’t try to fix it. All the reasons you can think of for not having a dog (or two) end up being overruled by those adoring eyes, the dopey, smiley faces, the unfailing loyalty and devotion, the tail-wagging-boy-it’s-so-good-to-see-you every time you come home. From the dawn of time, this whole “man’s best friend” deal has never been about the head, but the heart. Pet a dog; get a job for life. If that’s true, then c’mere Spot, and lemme scratch behind your ears.
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