There is a dog lying on the floor behind me as I write this.  She followed me here from the kitchen and has been sleeping quietly since I began.  If I go to the living room she will follow me there.  When I go to the bathroom, she will follow me there as well – waiting patiently outside the door until I’ve finished.  And then together, silently, we will both pad gently back to this spot where I will resume my writing and she will resume her sleeping. 

I think she likes me, but for the life of me I can’t imagine why. 

 It would be impossible for me to describe to you how much I used to hate dogs. (And I use this in the past tense only tentatively.)  I didn’t just dislike them, I hated them.  There are reasons for this I suppose, although it’s not necessary to go into them here.  If someone presses me for a reason, I generally tell them that it’s because I saw my two year-old brother attacked and brutally mauled by a pack of dogs when I was very young…  Of course this isn’t true but it seems to be what people want or expect to hear and it throws them off just long enough to allow me to change the subject.  Suffice it to say that I view dogs as pathetic, disgusting failures as a species: they are no longer the canines that they evolved to be, and they are not yet the humans they really want to be.  They have sold out.  They are a shameful lot.  They should be embarrassed.

So what exactly DID happen to transform a person from one who, when confronted by a barking dog, would stop and marshal all of the frick-off-and-die look that he could muster in a dog vs. man stare-down death match, into someone with a gentle dog sleeping at his feet?   

There are two reasons I guess, the most important one being THIS dog… the one behind me blissfully chasing cats in her sleep. 

•     •     •

The trouble started when my animal-loving daughter began to ask if we could get a dog.  “No,” I tried to reason calmly, “I’m sorry but no, we can’t.  I just CAN’T live with a dog in my house.” 

I tried to leave it at that, but the disappointment in her eyes was heartbreaking.  Eventually I realized that it was incredibly selfish on my part to deny her the positive life-experience of having a dog simply because of my own personal feelings. 

The first crack occurred in a pet store.  In a moment of weakness I blurted out: “why don’t we go have a look at the puppies?”  The look she gave me said it all.  I quickly tried to cover my tracks and discount what I had just said by adding: “you know, just to see what kinds of dogs you like…”   But the dog was out of the bag.  There was no putting it back.  Within days she was asking if she and Mom could go to the animal shelter “just to look”, and within hours of me half-heartedly saying “I guess”, she was back, face aglow, twitching with excitement

“Dad!  We found a dog!  She’s so cool.  They’re holding her for us.  You have to come down and sign some papers with Mom…”

This was all happening WAY too fast.

It was a medium-sized dog, jet black with white markings, very sleek, very athletic, very hyper.  I hated it.  The people at the shelter had named her “Surprise” because they couldn’t make sense out of her parentage.  “Part Dalmatian, part greyhound,” they told us.  The Dalmatian part was debatable, the greyhound part was unmistakable.  But there also seemed to be a whole lot of hound and mutt in there as well.  My daughter immediately renamed her “Gypsy” and so Gypsy she became. 

When we first brought her home it was traumatic.  The enemy was living in my home!  At first I tried to dictate that she be confined to the kitchen but this only made her frantic and she hurdled whatever barriers we constructed.  This heightened my distress.  The enemy had crossed the moat and had now breached the wall.  There was a dog shedding hair in my front room!  On the second day I became so upset that I ran away from home.  I threw some things in the car and left – for where and for how long I didn’t know.  I ended up sitting by the river for eight hours before reluctantly returning with my tail between by legs. 

For the first few weeks I would have absolutely nothing at all to do with the dog.  I wouldn’t walk it, wouldn’t pet it, wouldn’t even acknowledge it.   The first remotely nice thing that I did for it was to offer it a piece of bread with peanut butter, but the sticky concoction stuck to her upper palate and drove her into a fit of “ghnacking” and coughing sounds as she tried to extract it.  I was convinced that I’d killed her.  Here, the very first nice thing that I do for the damn dog and I choke her. 

My wife and daughter are going to kill me.

But she survived the peanut butter and eventually I began to take her down to the river to let her run along the abandoned tracks. .  I would use the time to talk to myself as we walked, thinking about my writing projects and my teaching.  She would race back and forth through the woods, checking in every now and then.  It was her outright athleticism that first began to break down the barriers.  When Gypsy ran, she was all dog – nothing half-assed human about her.  Sleek, agile, solidly muscled, fast as the wind – she could start like a sprinter out of the blocks, hit top speed within five strides and stop or turn on a dime.  When she was running at full speed, chasing a flock of scattering birds across an open field, she looked like a cheetah – head unmoving, arms and legs in perfect fluid motion, gracefully shoving the ground behind her like the exhaust from a jet.  She was truly beautiful to watch. 

In people-dog years, as a dog-child and teenager she was wild and uncontrollable.  She would shred the screen door trying to get out, chase cars dangerously, bark at neighbors and generally create havoc.  She was unmanageable, unteachable.

But through her athleticism, through the sheer joy and beauty of running, her personality began to emerge – dopey, insistent, quiet, hungry to please.  And I began more and more to appreciate her for the dog she was and not the human I thought she wanted to be.  As her “dogness” became more apparent, we began to become friends of sorts, or at least a truce was called.  We plied the banks of the river like two toddlers in parallel play – hardly saying a word – just acknowledging each other as we explored.  At night, I would take her out on to the local golf course and let her fly unimpeded down the dark fairways like the wind.  She could actually hurdle entire sand traps in a single bound.

When she reached her reckless mid-twenties in people-dog years, her exuberance caused her to be hit by a car – breaking her leg and slowing her a step or two.  Now when she runs, her back legs run slightly faster than the ones in front.  She is no longer efficiently in-line, so she runs ever-so-slightly sideways.  From the front and the back, she looks like a rapidly moving bucket of bricks.  But from the side she still looks like a cheetah.

I have come to appreciate that what I used to see in dogs as pathetic, is just their insatiable need to please. The whole notion of “unconditional love” that dog-owners like to throw around – I just don’t buy it.  What dogs want from us is a simple series of variations on food and attention.  For this they are willing to give us their undivided attention (lest they miss out on an opportunity for a “good girl!” or half a bologna sandwich).  But then, when you get down to it, food and attention are about all ANY of us really want from life.  At least dogs are honest about it. 

Just imagine the trouble we humans would get ourselves into if we had tails that wagged!

In dog-people years Gypsy is now middle aged - about forty.  I’m in my late-fifties.  The fact that she and I share middle age is probably why we get along so well.  At some point within the next three years, at some magical, solitary instant in time, Gypsy and I will both be the exact same age.  Hopefully we’ll be able to recognize that point and share a few notes on how it’s been.  But Gypsy is moving faster through life than I am.  She is eating up her years seven at a time, whereas I still take them one by one.  Her world moves faster, more quickly than does mine.  She will continue to zoom ahead, leaving me younger and younger by comparison; leaving me behind to face old age alone.

Gypsy won’t die of old age or need to be put to sleep.  She’s too rambunctious and high-spirited for that.  The end will come suddenly, I’m certain of this.  There will be a phone call or a knock at the door: “Do you own a black dog named Gypsy?”  Sadly I will be summoned to retrieve Gypsy’s broken, lifeless body from the side of the road where she was struck by a car that she had exuberantly decided to chase for old time’s sake.   

And then it will become so quiet.  No barking at strangers.  No frantic chases through the house for biscuits.  No tummy rubs or ear scratches.  The incessant dog hair that rains down constantly will slowly disappear and life will again become gentile.

We will miss her dearly.  I can’t believe I’m actually saying this but she has become a member of the family.  There will be gaping holes in our hearts.  There will be no one to walk with along the river.  There will be no marvelous beast tucking her legs compactly as she glides over a fallen tree like an Olympic hurdler.  There will be no idiot-but-well-meaning dog stupidly following me around the house or lying on the floor behind me as I write.

But I already know that the day she passes away is the day that my troubles will begin anew.  I will be asked when we can get another dog…

No, I’m sorry, we can’t. 

I can’t live with a dog.

I hate dogs.