Puppy Love

I hate it when people write about small, fuzzy, loveable things. It is almost as bad as "Have a nice day" said insincerely, or happy faces pasted on the wall (Mr. Yuck was better, some days).



I haven’t really had a love affair with most of the dogs that have owned me and to whom I have been enslaved to feed, walk, train, and clean up after. But I cannot yet say who was the dog love of my life–Bryan the noble and smart Irish setter; Danny the hypo-alergenic and extremely smart bichon frisé; or Byron (kin to the breed of Keats, Cavalier King Charles). Bryan, Danny, and Byron have all been super dogs to me, dogs I might have gone out drinking with, had I been much of a drinking man, and dogs I certainly have told my troubles to, as one should, with a dog one loves. We do need these animals who live with us. Two of my super dogs are still alive, and one is a nine-month-old puppy already worthy of deep and abiding love.



Danny lives with my ex-wife exclusively, by cruel decree, but he still nuzzles me and sticks his nose in my neck on those rare occasions when I see him. He even makes an exception in my case and gives me a little lick when he greets me. We are still that close.

Bryan the Irish setter of the late Sixties and early Seventies was grandson of a champion at Westminster, but, like some over-bred dogs, he was an epileptic, and I would sometimes find him stiff on the ground or on the floor of a room, for about ten minutes, then he would wake up, looking embarrassed. When I was a runner in training for marathons, he ran circles around me, even on a ten-mile run, and he was a champion groundhog hunter on my farm, piling the corpses with personal pride in the front yard. But he was also sweet and sympathetic, and a dog whose noble head you could put your head together with. At least one girl I dated during that single time visited Bryan after we broke up.



Danny came home in the early Nineties a tiny white cotton ball with sharp teeth, nine years ago, and he worried hell out of an old golden retriever, on her last legs, but he brought out the mother in her, and he brought out the mother in the rest of the family as well. On chilly nights, he slept under the covers with me, his little body curled into mine for warmth and love.




Should I say that these were proper, manly relationships, and that these dogs I am talking about are not gay dogs, even though two of the three were, sad to say for them, altered. The nice thing about dogs and men is that a man can love a dog unashamedly, despite its sex, and the dog and the man can bond without fear of labels.

Bonding Rituals



I wouldn’t get in the face of most Doberman Pinschers or Pit Bulls, and I have heard of mean and bitchy Bichons, but going nose to nose with a dog is one part of bonding. Some people don’t mind being kissed on the mouth by dogs, but you don’t know where that tongue’s been. It is a bizarre enough sensation to wake up with a puppy licking one of your ears.



I like hugging the dogs I love, I know they like their ears scratched, and some of them like you to stick the tip of a finger between their toes, an area that can be deliciously ticklish on some cats and some dogs. Some dogs, at least, seem to laugh. Some of them dearly love their bellies rubbed, but watch that practice with puppies or oversexed males.



A friend who is a dog-lover told me last week, "You’ve really bonded with that puppy," which means that she noticed that Byron plays with me, cuddles me, and even sometimes obeys me. Puppy love is sometimes tough love, when the command is "Stop that!" or "You come back here!" Especially smart dogs even seem to realize that "You come back here" means "Don’t run out into the road or you will get killed and I won’t be able to stand that." So, bonding has something to do with obedience, and a great deal to do with sleeping under your master’s face, in his arms, sometimes nose to nose.



The Criteria for Super Dogs


Sympathy, a sense of humor, and intelligence. Probably mutts from the pound are more apt to have all those qualities than pure-bred dogs, and mutts are apt to have more personality, which should be the fourth quality. Sense of humor is hard to prove, because some people don’t have a sense of humor, but some dogs and a very few cats do have a detectable sense of humor, and those animals enjoy life more than dull, overly serious pets who might mirror the dour aspect of their owners. I don’t think I am talking about the cat who plays with the mouse before killing it, or even the playful dog who is learning how to bite better. It was Thomas Hobbes who said that laughter is sudden glory. There may always be a sinister side to laughter and joy, but every now and then you run into a dog or cat who can really have a good time, and even laugh at himself or herself. That kind of animal may be a party animal, or just enjoy a joke with a human friend. Some cats are sadistic friends who will let you pet them twice, then bite and claw you on the third pet; that again is the murderous kind of playing.

Our pets, even in as highly-evolved a society as Beaufort’s, are emotionally necessary to our human well-being. Of course we are enslaved to them, and there is unnatural co-dependency between us, but we are good to them, usually, and they are good for us.