ohmidog!

I dunno, but I’ve loved trying to find out.

Humans are from Earth. Dogs are also from Earth, but sometimes it seems that it’s a different Earth from ours. A lifetime of owning, and being owned by, a series (and sometimes a large crowd) of dogs has raised more questions than it’s answered. As it becomes time to hand the leash back to John, I’ve been thinking about a few of these imponderables.

For example, there was Roxane, the longhaired Dachshund, and the cigarettes. Long before cigarettes became anathema, Roxie hated them passionately. If one of my parents chanced to leave a pack on an end table, the coffee table, or the arm of the couch, Roxie sprang into action. She would go to work with her elegant nose, pushing and nudging the offensive cancer sticks until they fell to the floor. Sometimes it took her a while. Once she had them where she wanted them, she would continue to push and nudge until she’d hidden them under the couch. She was a one-dog anti-smoking campaign.

Scarlett, Roxie’s most beautiful daughter, became ill while nursing a litter of seven puppies. She had to be separated from them, and we had to feed and raise them by hand. That’s when I learned (at age thirteen)  that puppies aren’t born knowing how to poop.  Mother has to lick their round little bellies in order to get results. If Mother happens to be a human surrogate, it goes something like this: Cover lap with paper towel and grab a puppy from the basket. Feed the puppy from a tiny apparatus that’s a cross between a syringe and a doll’s bottle. Place puppy on the paper towel, hopefully with business end down. Gently but firmly massage the small tummy until success is achieved. Fold up the results in the towel, discard them, replace the puppy in the basket, get the next puppy, and repeat. At some point, they figure out how to do this for themselves, but folks, when they are brand-new, they have to eat and poop at least every two hours.

And, oh, my sweetest Molly-the-mutt. I know you’re out there somewhere because theologians have never been able to convince me that dogs don’t have immortal souls. But what in God’s name was it that you found to roll in on those occasions when you got out of the yard? I think you must have located the one place in the city where skunks go to die and become carrion. Tomato juice baths are supposed to work. They don’t always. Molly was more ticked off by getting a bath than any dog I’ve ever known. If she couldn’t find carrion to roll in, she’d go out back and roll in the dirt. Anything to get rid of the cleanliness.

Hounds in general can be a bit stand-offish, and we had a lot of hounds when I was growing up. When they’ve decided to bestow their love on you, they all seem to do it in the same way. They come to where you are sitting (or lying down) and sort of hide their face in you, using your hand or arm or leg to cover their eyes, their ears, their noses–the entire wonderful sensory apparatus that they rely on. It’s as though they’re saying, “I trust you, human, so I’m giving you what’s most important to me.” If a hound ever does this to you, I’ve learned that you should consider it an honor.

In case anybody is wondering why I am such a partisan of Pit Bulls, I have to say that I’ve never had one and probably never will. But here’s the deal with Pit Bulls. I arrive at the dog park and let Spencer off his leash, and he trots away. I grab a spot on the bench. If there’s a Pit Bull there, he will eventually come over to investigate me. (I’ve always liked letting dogs come up to me rather than making the overtures.) Often, the dog will go away again–but if he comes back, that’s when the magic happens. Suddenly he’s there again, sitting on my foot and leaning against me–decisively. That’s when I know it’s OK to reach down and say “Hello,” and scratch the ears or chin or other good parts, because I’ve made a new friend. I call this the Pit Bull Lean of Love, and I find it irresistible. I have no idea why they do it.

As for Spencer, he joined us fairly late in his life with many habits already set. Why does he hate cell phones? The little “bleep” that mine makes when the battery gets low galvanizes him to frantic action as he rushes to my side to protect me from it. He also distrusts men in baseball hats and protects me from whatever it is that they’re up to. I hope I never encounter some baseball celebrity while walking the dog. Other dogs love to play tug-of-war, but Spencer is too much of a gentleman. He always yields the tugged object immediately. He also has a habit that I’ve never observed in any other dog. He “mashes” on his people just the way affectionate cats do. He doesn’t do it for anybody else, and he doesn’t do it for us very often. It’s clearly a way of saying, “I love you.”

And of course, we love him, too.