He is clearly the dominant one in the relationship.  When we’re together it’s apparent he keeps me on a very short leash.  He insists I’m physically nearby at all times, jealously competes for my attention, and makes it plain to everyone that I belong to him. It drives him crazy that he can’t go wherever I go or when I’m out of his field of vision for any length of time.  When I’m home, I have no privacy.  He tracks my every movement and trails me everywhere, even into the bathroom.

I do nothing to discourage his behavior.  You might say I enable it.  I not only scurry to attend to his needs, I try to anticipate them.  I indulge his every whim and I can’t stand up to him, no matter how unrealistic his demands.  Part of it is he has a bad temper and I don’t like to incur his wrath.  But in a strange way I enjoy pleasing him.  He makes me feel cherished in a way no one else ever has.

That’s why, when he says jump (if he could say jump), I say “How high.”  

I wouldn’t act this way or tolerate this behavior from a man, woman, friend, child, boss or any other human being.  If I knew someone whose husband or lover acted this way, I’d do everything in my power to get her to break free and get out of such a psychologically destructive relationship. 

So it’s supremely puzzling to me that where Cooper, my eight-year-old Shih Tzu is concerned, I’m putty in his paws.

How did this happen, I sometimes muse as we snuggle on the couch and I feed him half my chicken cordon bleu, then let him lick the plate clean and when he’s still not sated (he lets me know this by growling urgently and scratching my arm), I promptly trot into the kitchen and get him seconds.

How did I allow myself to become so subservient to a creature that can’t even say “I love you,” I wonder as I kiss his furry head and scratch inside his ears until he lets me know I’m done, all the while deliriously murmuring, “Mommy wuvs you my baby, yes Mommy wuv wuv wuvs you so much!”

It’s not like I haven’t been exposed to healthy pet/owner relationships before.  All my life I’ve known people who’ve had dogs and their canines treated them with proper amounts of respect and obedience.  I grew up with dogs and cats and nothing in my upbringing approached what’s happened between Cooper and me.

I have two other dogs, a friendly, obedient Corgi and a darling little Japanese Chin. The Dog Whisperer, aka Cesar Millan would approve of my calm-assertive pack leader role that defines our interactions. 

He’d do an intervention with Cooper and me. 

What would he say if he could see us napping, all thirty pounds of serenely snoring Cooper planted on my chest, inhibiting my breathing and making sleep difficult for me.  (He looks so comfy I hate to disturb him.)

He’d be even more appalled by our nocturnal ritual.  I can’t go to sleep at night until I play one of two games of Cooper’s choosing:  Belly Rub or the Hand/Mouth game.  They are as simplistic as they sound.  If we play Belly Rub, I rub Cooper’s belly until he’s tuckered out.  If I stop before he’s ready, I am treated to a series of hard kicks to my side with his hind legs until I resume the belly rub.  With the Hand/Mouth game, I repeatedly place my hand in and out of Cooper’s mouth while he makes growly noises and pretends to bite me.  He likes this game so we play for a long time.  Sometimes I drift off because I’m tired and of course he kicks me awake. 

I prefer Belly Rub to the Hand/Mouth game because Hand/Mouth leaves my hand covered in dog saliva and I’m too tired to get up and wash when we’re done.  But it’s always Cooper’s choice.

For a long time I questioned our relationship.  I felt like it was bad, that maybe our love was wrong.  I listened to my friends and family cluck their tongues and make disapproving remarks when they’d see us together. 

“You should stand up for yourself,” they’d say, and “I’d never put up with that sort of thing from a dog.” 

But we’ve been together eight years now.  Eight years in which other people have gotten rid of their dogs for various reasons:  they were too wild or they shed too much or the dog wasn’t good around kids or it just didn’t work out between them.

I have to think we have something deeper, Cooper and I.  I’m sure it’s true because I think about him when we’re apart.  I know he thinks about me too because no one in the world is happier to see me when I walk through the door after being gone all day and asks nothing at all of me but a belly rub.  That counts for something.  A lot, actually.

Cesar Millan believes walking dogs is important, both for the exercise aspect and for a bonding experience between owner and pet.  I couldn’t agree more but I don’t think the way Cooper and I walk quite adheres to Cesar’s Way.

Cooper hates to walk but he’s a little chubby so I make him, for the exercise.  On hot days he particularly loathes it.  Sometimes he’ll abruptly stop and lie down on someone’s lawn.

“Please Cooper,” I’ll plead, “Get up!  It’s hot and I want to go home.”

But even as I’m begging I know what I have to do.  I open my arms, he leaps into them and off we go, me sweating and struggling to carry all thirty pounds of him for half a mile or more while he contentedly takes in the scenery.

After all this time, I’m used to what the neighbors say as I pass them.  They stop their weeding or car washing and spout the same tired quips: 

“He’s sure got you trained.”

“I can see which one wears the leash in the family.”

“Who’s walking who?”

I’m done caring what other people think.

"It’s whom,” I snarl as I stagger by unashamed, holding my head high and proud, my love on display for the entire world to see.