In Appreciation of Dogs

Marcelle's sister, Denise, visited us today with her dog, Ruby, and seeing Ruby again, I thought, Dear Reader, that a discussion of dogs was in order. Faithful friend and companion, the dog has been at man's side for millennia. But what is it about dogs that makes them such marvelous company?

As puppies, they are adorable to the point of irresistible, all paws, licking tongue and an appendage at the rear whose function seems to be to remove anything not bolted down from the coffee table. And teeth... mustn't forget the teeth. Some dogs go just a bit overboard in this department, gnawing everything in sight.

I recall when my sister and I were growing up, my parents, rather unwisely, bought a beagle pup, whom we named Patch. Patch distinguished himself in many ways, such as regularly escaping the leash and running amok, only to be coaxed back within mere inches before bounding merrily away, while I (it was always my job to "go and get that bloody animal"), stood stupidly, leash in hand, holding back tears of frustration. The end came for Patch after my father came home to find the "bloody animal" had devoured the entire arm of our living room sofa, rendering it to drifted piles of splinters and stringy bits of couch fabric. Soon after this Patch moved on to a farm, a locale much more suited to the beagle than subdivision domesticity.

Looking back on it, although I love dogs, I must admit to having had spectacularly dismal luck with them. My ex and I lived in several farmhouses, and as such, had quite a lot of animals: goats, sheep, a pig, a number of calves, chickens and a turkey. (Perhaps I should clarify that we did not have these animals in the farmhouse.) Added to this, we also had a succession of dogs that were acquired from various sources that were offering the beasts free of charge. This, of course, should have raised large red warning flags, but that is the problem with dogs... generally, one look at them and you fall in love, and simply have to have them.

One of our first was Freeway, a Lhasa Apso (or as I called it, a half-an-asshole). Freeway was a nice dog, all things considered, gentle and loving, and seemed to consist of a plump roll of fly-away fur with a disreputable flag of a tail at one end, and a set of prominent underslung teeth and boot button eyes hidden deep in the fur at the other. Often, his entire jowls were stained orange as he loved leftover spaghetti, and we used to put a cut stocking over his head to at least keep his ears out of the sauce.

In complete contrast to the half-an-asshole, was a Great Dane named Zeus, who was also free, and thus a bargain that could not be refused. Zeus was a striking dog, caramel-coloured with uncropped ears and tail. Despite the astonishing size difference, Freeway was the alpha, and I can still remember the scene of Zeus standing with a plaintive look as the half-an-asshole literally hung, clamped to a jowl. Zeus developed a rather inconvenient habit of defecating in the house, and naturally it was always yours truly, Dear Reader, that discovered this in the middle of the night. Or more correctly, it was my bare foot that discovered this. The animal could produce astonishingly large piles of shit, and so the experience was not in any way pleasant.

Zeus's height meant that his head was level with the kitchen table, and as you might imagine, this provided him with all manner of temptation, and the rest of us with a morbid fear that your dinner might not be there the moment you turned your back. At one point, he woofled down a pound of butter in under three microseconds. This, naturally, precipitated a night of exceptionally runny and odiferous dumps that littered the place.

The death knell for Zeus was when he scarfed down a large and intricate gingerbread house that my wife and the kids had made for Christmas. It had been high up on the mantelpiece over the fireplace, but obviously, not too high for the "bloody animal". Shortly thereafter, we paid Zeus forward to try his fortunes with another family.

Freeway had one thing going for him though, and that was staying power. He outlasted a good many other dogs that joined our household over the years. Notable among this pack was a Bouvier that, although having a seemingly good disposition, developed an unhealthy desire to eat anything with two or four legs in the farmyard. He would stand outside the pen of Lucy, the pig, following his porcine target with locked eyes, and literally salivate. The downfall of the Bouvier was when one of the sheep got loose, and the dog immediately latched onto its hindquarter and could not be dissuaded to let go. I had to take a two-by-four to the creature to get its attention, and soon thereafter, he was rotated back off the premises.

Then there was Hamlet, a Dalmatian, that I brought home and who proceeded to race around the house at warp nine and made it his ongoing mission to devour every shoe and stuffed animal in sight. This was a dog of enduring stamina and was reminiscent of a windup toy gone amok. He too, was re-gifted out in short order.

I do recall another dog of indeterminate breed, evidently some bizarre cross-breeding experiment involving Rottweiler, Pitbull, and Komodo Dragon, that would hide in its house, growling and glowering at anything and everything. This one lasted all of about two days as it took a run at my son Cameron, and thus earned its walking papers in record time.

Since my divorce, I have been dog-free, with only a cat as a pet. In some ways, this suits me fine as a cat is a far easier pet to care for, not requiring walks and letting it out to pee etc. But on the other hand, as the saying goes "dogs have masters, and cats have staff". There's just not the same devoted attention that a dog gives. There's not all those inane things that dogs do that make them such irresistible animals: the way that when they walk, their back ends seem to want to outpace the front, giving them that curious sideaways motion; the way they cock their heads from side to side; the way they invariably, inconveniently and mortifyingly hump somebody's leg when you have company; just the sheer, downright goofiness of dogs! These are things that a cat simply can't compete with.

Thanks, Ruby, I needed a 'dog fix'!