Confession: I am a dog lover. I’ve been so since I was six years old and my parents gave me my first dog. Pat was her name, a black and white collie/English shepherd mix, a loving little pup who used to pull down my toddling younger brother by his diaper from behind, without ever leaving the faintest mark of a tooth on his buttocks. Now Pat was promiscuous, and also not spayed, so it was no wonder that she should favor us (me especially) with three separate litters, with three different appearing batches of pups, over three different years.
I knew nothing of mammalian reproduction then, and didn’t think to ask where they came from, and how they got made. But I alone got an upfront seat to view those three litters of newborns (numbering seven, eight, and seven, respectively ) because she always had them under our neighbor’s garage; only I was skinny enough to slither through the wooden struts and concrete supports where she cuddled them. There I could, with Pat’s permission, stroke them before they had their eyes open, and until they were old enough for the proud Mom to bring them out for the world to see.
Of course the pups had to be given away far too soon, and each departure was painful for me. And then one day Pat herself was gone. I still can’t remember how or why…I can only guess that my father attended to end-of-life matters on his own to spare me the grief of my first dog gone. Or did I just blank out the loss from memory?
Since then I have almost always had a canine for company, and I have come to regret deeply the differing life spans of humans and dogs. Too soon they grow old and die, and the love you developed for them fades to a sad memory of their qualities that made them special…a void to be filled only with another rescue of another orphaned best friend.
My attachment to dogs borders on the irrational, I suppose. Whenever I hear the word “dirty dog” or “yellow dog” used to describe a human, I want to come to all dogs’ defense. And when I hear someone use the traditional “you son of a bitch,” or today’s fashionable putdown “my bitch” to refer to someone subservient to their wishes, I bristle. Who the hell are humans to demean a creature nobler than themselves—one we’ve lived with in mutual respect for more than 15,000 years, since they were wolves and we hunted as a team.
With age my attachment to canines has only grown, to the extent that whenever I see an SPCA ad on the telly showing a mistreated dog shivering in the cold, I must change channels quickly. Words attributed to President Harry Truman sum up best, for me, the place of dogs in our lives: “If you want a friend in Washington D. C., buy a dog.”
The above serves as a lead-in to a spirit-of-the-season love story I’d like to share with you. It’s written by Ken Bash, a longtime friend and a fine writer, with whom I obviously share an affection for man’s best pal. With his permission, I reprint it here for other dog-lovers’ pleasure.
They Call It Puppy Love
by Ken Bash
Back when Al Franken hosted a radio show, one of his guests was an expert on “big cats”—tigers, lions, jaguars, leopards, etc.
Franken asked her, “If my house cat, my domesticated pet, were big enough, would she eat me?”
The expert didn’t hesitate: “Yes, probably.”
So much for our feline “friends.”
Now don't get me wrong; I love cats, and in the past, a few have kept me as their pet. But I am a confirmed dog person.
This is Lucy. We adopted her at our local shelter eight years ago, when she was about a year old. Her DNA is Dachshund, Miniature Pinscher and Boston Terrier. Lucy weighs 18 pounds. Even if she were 200 pounds, Lucy would never eat me.
Lucy sleeps in our bed between my wife Janice and me every night, under the covers, snuggling and nestled against my side.
In the morning, Lucy dutifully and thoroughly licks the salty sleep from my eyes. When she has finished the job, she rolls onto her back and bares her pink belly, upon which I plant my open mouth and produce a loud, sloppy raspberry.
The whole routine is choreographed. Some might deem it unsanitary and even a little disgusting.
Screw them.
The bond that Lucy and I share is so obvious that it has caused my wife to experience a tinge of jealousy. Recently Janice said that she sometimes wonders if I love Lucy more than I love her.
“Oh, honey,” I said, “don’t be ridiculous. It’s just that Lucy is so uninhibited with her shows of affection. And I have to reciprocate because I don’t want to hurt her feelings. Of course I love you more. I mean, she’s just a dog.”
“I’m never going to lick your eyeballs.”
“Of course not, but…”
"But what?"
“But—say if every time I come home, whether I’ve been away two weeks or two hours, you would run as fast as you can to greet me at the door, shaking your butt like crazy, wearing nothing but a monogrammed reflective pink collar, and frantically paw me and lick me all over, and leap up into my arms, getting so excited that you lose control of your bladder, well, then it would be a no-brainer. No contest. Definitely.”
“If I did that, you’d have a heart attack on the spot.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right. But I’d die a happy man.”
“Well, don’t worry, ain’t gonna happen. Besides, I wouldn’t want to make Lucy jealous.”
* * *
Lucy and I are still bonding every night, and continuing our morning ritual, and now she and Janice and I also sometimes engage in a ménage à trois on our big comfy couch in the living room, sharing a bag of popcorn and watching DOGTV.
My vision is amazingly clear.