My Smart Mouth: Woman's Best Friend

Despite having grown up surrounded by animals – or perhaps because of it – I am not a card-carrying member of the dog lover’s club.

Before you rally a lynch mob, let me explain my position by saying that I was raised surrounded primarily by working dogs. I will admit that the line between working dog and pet was somewhat blurred in our household, but many of you who grew up on farms and ranches and would probably not dream of letting a dog onto your bed will certainly understand the difference. Loyal and intelligent as our cow dogs might have been, they were frequently festooned in burrs, mud, manure or placenta, depending on the time of year. Their aroma was usually made up of equal parts eau de skunk and chronic halitosis, a result of broken teeth from frequent kicks to the face and questionable hygiene choices.

As to their appearance, well…you try removing mats from the coat of an anxious border collie who is fast and agile enough to snap at the heels of a full-grown bull, and strongly disagrees with the necessity of your intervention.

My point being, these were not the sort of dogs you’d invite onto your bed or let lick your face, even were you the sort of person who is inclined to such things (And if you are, stop it. That’s gross.). They were wily, grubby animals who often preferred to be outside and, when they did come in the house, usually resulted in a mess to vacuum up. As vacuuming was one of my daily chores during most of my adolescence, I did not harbor the fondness for man’s best friend that the rest of my family exhibited.

Well into adulthood, I mostly viewed dogs as a responsibility, liability and potential mess. Dog owners, like parents, must worry about their charge and its behavior, keep to a schedule and buy supplies. For most of my life I’ve been hard-pressed enough just worrying about my own behavior. School, work and social obligations made more than enough demands on my time for my liking, and I preferred my “supplies” over ice or hanging in my closet.

It wasn’t until my mid-thirties, in fact, that I got my own dog – a decision based purely on impulse. I couldn’t tell you what changed – maybe I was feeling a little more settled. Maybe I was nesting. Maybe my hormones were imbalanced, or I needed to take a multivitamin. Scrolling through Instagram one day I came across a rather scraggly looking puppy, gazing out of the screen and directly into my eyes. When I went to look at her (yeah, right - as if anyone “just looks” at a month-old puppy), she immediately separated herself from the chaos of her nine litter mates and toddled directly to me, and I was sold. I began researching house-breaking techniques and purchased a kennel, and a month later I brought Dolly home.

Four years later, I routinely forget she’s even here. I don’t know if I can take the credit, but I can tell you that this dog very convincingly impersonates a rug. She does not bark, does not fetch, keeps her toys for ages because she refuses to chew on them, ignores deer, chickens and rodents, does not get up before 10 a.m., could not be coerced onto the furniture if you tried and regards you suspiciously for some time before gingerly taking any proffered delicacy. In short, she behaves as though she were a human child raised by my mother. Which I’m sure is complete coincidence.

Why even have a dog that’s not interested in dogging, you might ask? In my case, she’s the perfect compromise. I am spared the annoying roommate with poor personal hygiene who constantly wants to hang out, but I still enjoy the unwavering loyalty and empathy that earned dogs the title of “man’s best friend” in the first place.

My dog is chill like a house plant, and that’s just the way I like her. The one time she feels compelled to be “woman’s best friend” is during heartbreak or grief – in which case she does not leave my side for weeks. She doesn’t DO anything, of course, she’s just there, serving up silent, undemanding companionship and sympathetically knowing looks until I am back on my feet.

It was this one characteristic that finally helped me understand why people love dogs, and why they put up with the mess, the headache, the noise and expense. I now understand how it’s possible to love something even though it’s useless at folding laundry, licks the carpet and looks like the homeless love child of Chewbacca and a coyote. I don’t need anyone to greet me at the door when I come home. I don’t want to play frisbee or take two brisk daily walks. But, I do enjoy silent sympathy. Solidarity. That’s what being a dog owner means, to me - having one creature on this earth who is always on your side, no matter what. Even if it is just because you feed them.

In fact, so completely was I won over by Dolly’s therapeutic effects that my latent genetic pre-disposition toward dog hoarding must have been triggered. This summer, despite my man’s dire predictions that “you have one dog, you have a companion – you have two dogs, you have a problem,” I went out and got myself a puppy, who promptly abandoned me in favor of a profound fixation on “daddy.”

So now, I have one roommate who looks like the love child of Chewbacca and a Coyote and has begun eating her feelings, and another who jumps up and down like a spring-loaded Tigger and resembles the product of a romance between a young pony and one of those faux-fur throws. And, instead of solidarity I enjoy silent, resentful accusation from one, unrelenting optimism whilst repeatedly dropping a soggy plush toy into my coffee cup from the other.

Lest you think this idyll has won me over into the ranks of dog lovers everywhere, think again. I regard dogs much as I do children – I mostly only like my own, but if yours is particularly smart, cute, and mannerly I might occasionally feel inspired to say hello. And you know what? That’s ok. I’m not required to love your dog or your kid, just like you’re not required to love mine. You don’t have to pet my dog. Especially the big one. I understand that she looks and smells like she rolled in cooking oil - sometimes I don’t want to touch her either. To each their own – we can still be friends.

Unless you’re a cat person. I don’t trust cats, they’re shady.