For better or for worse, I am at my very best with dogs. My children and my husband and my family and my friends are harder to fathom. I know I am no picnic for them either. Dear Lord. Not even close. But I get dogs.
Dogs are very clear communicators. I admire their straightforwardness. You will never catch a shepherd mix gossiping outside the local coffee shop about the trampy terrier next door. You can read them the crappiest thing you’ve ever written, and as long as you read it kindly and pause to scratch them between their ears, they will gaze at you with great compassion and unwavering encouragement. Dogs know that everything on this earth is in process, and they are A-OK with that concept. They know there are no new stories. When F. used to do his business on fire hydrants, I would say to him, “Buddy, how trite. Think outside the box.” And he would look at me with pity, as if to say, You know so little. Life is lost on you.
Dogs lunge cheerfully snoutfirst for the crotch, the armpit, the poo you stepped in on the way over to their house. Dogs will French-kiss you at the first possible opportunity. Outside commitments need not stand in the way of a good sloppy heartfelt French-kiss and some soulful spooning and pawing. They know that there is enough love to go around, so there’s no need to be a miser in doling it out.
The best thing about dogs? No unbearable small talk. You can get right to the heart of the matter with them—any matter at all—right away. Dogs know that there really is such thing as love at first sight. They’ll let you know what went wrong before, about the heartaches they’ve had, but you have to be paying attention. A quick ears-tucked-back cringe when you reach too suddenly for your coffee cup—the one that’s sitting on the table, right by his head. Two cups of kibble devoured frantically in less than a minute. A splintered door after you leave.
They wear their hearts on their paws and their haunches and blazed furred chests, and it makes me swoon. If you watch and listen carefully, they’ll tell you more about their entire lives in a few weeks than most humans are willing to offer up after years of friendship.
We’re not hardwired for that sort of intimacy. It doesn’t come easy to humans. It’s hard to roll over for a belly rub with your tongue lolling out the side of your mouth when you’re worried about bad breath and looking needy and 100 Other Ways You’ll Make a Bad Impression.
I don’t know where I would be right now without these creatures. Tonight I brushed my teeth sitting on the floor of our upstairs bathroom, leaning against the vanity cabinets (which in our case should be called the no-chance-at-vanity cabinets) and contemplating our leaking toilet tank. Enter Snouts.
Delighted to find me down on their level, Eli and Nina barged through the door and commenced an outrageous Clash of the Titans reenactment over my thighs. Big fake growling Chewbacca sound effects. Joyous chomping of each other’s heads. Pawing and smacking and thwacking each other into me, into the door frame, into the side of the toilet. Spit flying everywhere. Theirs, not mine. (I kept my own foamy toothpaste spit in my mouth for as long as I could because I didn’t want to get up and break up the extraordinary show they were putting on for my benefit.) It was like watching a Shetland pony and a fat fox go at it on WWF. And it was only when I heard Sophie laughing from her bed down the hall that I realized I had been laughing out loud too.
I realized this weekend I am at my calmest when Eli and Nina pounce on each other on my freshly washed sheets, leaving fur (black guard hairs from Eli, poufy reddish-white undercoat from Nina) and dog saliva and dirty paw crumbles all over my fancy duvet cover. I watch them playing on my clean bed, and I can’t bear to break it up. I am at peace.
My children jump on the couch, and I am the one making Chewbacca noises, and not nice ones either. But somehow the dogs are Chapstick for my soul.
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