Dog and I (8 page)

I have read to her—sometimes while she sleeps, legs straight up—the story of Peps, who so inspired Wagner when he was at the piano that the great composer once actually claimed that Peps was co-author of
Tannhauser
. (Whether Peps would want such credit is open to speculation.) She has also heard, both while sleeping and awake, the story of Tuck, the Scottish greyhound who stood, and died bravely, fighting with General George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn.

I have read aloud to her so that she will appreciate the deep connection between great dogs and great men— and if I can still aspire, in my advancing years, to be one of these two, then she should aspire to be the other.

I have told her about the Skye terrier that Alexander Graham Bell taught to say “How are you, Grandmama?” while the little dog growled and Bell manipulated its lips, and I have explained to her how all this led, eventually, to the invention of the machine I sometimes call her on from out of town in the hopes that she will recognize my voice and remember me. I have told her the story of Sigmund Freud and how he would hold birthday parties for his various inspirational dogs, great man and dogs sitting around the table wearing silly paper hats, Freud writing special poems for each dog that he would read aloud with great drama while the dogs checked the meter and rhyme schemes.

We have read together the story of Pat, who some claim was the true prime minister of Canada in the days of William Lyon Mackenzie King. The way things have been going around here lately, I have told Willow, it is not entirely out of the question for her to dream of one day holding higher office.

And, as well, we have read together the stories from Mr. Coren's delightful book on the incredible number of dogs—he estimates 230—who have lived at the White House. She has heard all about Skip, the famous mutt Teddy Roosevelt called “a little dog—by that I mean a little of this, and a little of that.” She has listened to the stories of Fala, FDR's little dog who was made a private in the U.S. Army. And, of course, she has heard all about Millie, Barbara Bush's springer spaniel whose major literary effort,
Millie's Book,
actually outsold the president's memoirs.

You would think all this would sink in. But no, I read and she sleeps, and when I stop reading she goes and pokes about under and in the furniture until she finds one of those balls that have been thrown and retrieved so often it looks as though the last time it was thrown was up. She drops it on the open book, sitting back and staring, staring, staring….

Lost Dog at Twenty Below

The call came late on the shortest day of the year. It was the youngest, on a cellphone, his voice breathless and thin as if coming from somewhere deep back in the bush—which, in fact, it was.

“Willow's gone!”

He and a pal had taken their dogs—the pal's dog a true border collie, ours a borderline collie with borderline intelligence—off to an area park known on local maps as the Bruce Pit. In local circles, however, it is known as the Dog Convention Centre, a place where mostly purebreds and a few mutts run wild in gangs, a designated sanctuary with not a single sign threatening the dogs with fines if they don't keep their owners on a short leash.

There are, increasingly, such places to be found in Canadian cities. Male dogs arrive convinced that the Supreme Court of Domesticated Animals has declared the entire park a swingers' club; females, as a result, spend much of their time sitting on cold snow and snapping angrily at pestering males; and owners sip coffee—Starbucks snobs in one corner, people with taste in another—and talk about such pressing matters as the best place to find designer pet clothes and debate the benefits of modern crate-training over traditional house-training.

It is hard to believe how the politicians have missed all this. In this country they think there are votes to be had for something as minor as daycare spaces for preschoolers, little realizing that any political party offering to subsidize agility classes for puppies would sweep the country.

The idea in coming to Bruce Pit this bitterly cold day was to “socialize” the dog. She is one year old this month, frighteningly friendly to humans but skittish around other dogs, especially those with loud barks and untoward intentions.

The idea was to let her run with the older, more secure border collie. The two of them could snake about the park in that odd you-can't-see-me slouch of the herding collie, perhaps meet a few regular dogs, and maybe even realize how lucky they are that their owners haven't turned them into fake-fur-and-bootie-wearing Barbie doll dogs.

It worked fine for a while—right up until they happened to run smack into an evolving dog fight over some imagined slight. The little dog bolted immediately. Straight under the dark skirts of the nearest spruce, off back into the deep, deep woods—and gone.

“Bring warm clothes!”
the youngest shouted into the phone, teeth chattering in the background.
“It's freezing!”

It was twelve below when we got there. The boy, having headed out in nothing but a fleece, looked like he needed medical attention, not help looking for the lost dog. He put on the ski clothes we had brought along, pulled on thick mittens and a toque, and all of us, some carrying flashlights, headed off deep into the pit.

Darkness fell and the moon, fortunately, rose. It was a bright, clear night, but the advantage given to the eyes came with a disadvantage to the rest of the system: the temperature was now twenty below and heading lower. Up and down the trails we searched, calling her name and, so long as it was still possible to purse lips in such cold, whistling for her. But nothing.

“She won't last more than a couple of hours in this,” someone said. No one argued, though no one knew for certain.

The hope that she'd gone elsewhere was really no hope at all. The only exit from the pit parking area was out onto a busy road, the traffic heavy and fast at this time of day, late rush hour, and impossible for a small, frightened dog to get across to where she might find a friendly back door to whine at and scratch on.

After several hours, there was no choice but to give up. No dog and too cold for humans. We arrived home in a stunned, depressed state. A little dog that doesn't have the sense to come in out of the rain was out now in sub-zero temperature, thick bush in one direction, heavy traffic in the other.

Inside the house there was, for once, nothing wiggling and wagging with a shoe in her mouth. There was, however, something. The telephone was flashing red with a message.

A man had been driving home late from work. Traffic on the busy road had come to a halt as a small, skittish dog darted out and then back. He had opened his door, called, and she leapt in—trusting completely in strangers, just as she had been taught.

His wife had tracked us down through Willow's tags. “We have your dog,” the message said. She left their number, and then a giggle. “No need to hurry,” she added. “She's down in the basement, playing with the children.”

But we hurried anyway.

Merchandising Madness

Here, by the front counter, we have a tray of mailman's fingers—a dollar each. Cheaper, surely, by the gross. And there, behind the party hats and tutus and faux fur coats, we find the stack of penises. Bull penises. Bullies. Pizzle sticks. Whatever you're more comfortable with …

On the other hand, perhaps it is not so much this pile of stiff, dried-out bull penises—“an excellent chew to remove plaque and tarter buildup”—that is causing the peculiar itching, sweaty feeling that is rippling up and down your spine as you walk around this high-end store in the trendiest section of town. Perhaps it is the whole idea.

This store is hardly unique, though it is unusual. It is part of a small chain of dog “boutiques” that go under the Bark & Fitz banner and are amusing stops for the curious as well as treasured stops for the domesticated. There is a bowl of treats at the front entrance and a seemingly endless supply of treats from the small bakery at the back—so long as you come in on all fours with your tail wagging. Dogs, the woman running the shop says, have become “the new children.”

Such shifts seem to happen from time to time. Loud men talking on their ear-clip cellphones in busy airports are, most would agree, the new sign of mental illness, as surely as it used to be the goofy guy talking to himself as he walks down the street and makes sure to touch every passing telephone pole.

I was tempted to suggest that dogs have become the new Barbie dolls—something for grownups to dress up and play with using elaborate pretend sets—but then it was pointed out to me that dogs, in fact, now have their own Barbie-like dolls to play with, and so the analogy hardly works. Better just to admit that dogs have become the new children for those who have not yet had their children or, just as often, have had their children and need some replacement to blow their life savings on as they drive themselves increasingly around the bend.

Certainly, the madness applied to the care and raising of dogs has reached heights not even imagined by those who devoted previous years to the care and raising of small humans. The young girl helping out in this shop, for example, is at the computer, trying to register her puppy on some website devoted to purebred Labrador retrievers. She has stalled because she does not have its full identification numbers yet, including the details required for a computer chip that the veterinarian will be embedding between his shoulder blades. This is frustrating to her and, being naturally curious, I ask her how old her puppy is.

“I don't have him yet,” she says.

“Oh,” I nod, understanding. But, it turns out, not understanding at all.

She continues on: “He won't be born until August— he's not even conceived yet.” Planned Parenthood, eat your heart out.

This friendly store is busy and, apparently, prospering. It has a line of fur products—Buddy Wash, Woof, Flip—and even a line of mint pet aromatics devoted to improving the morning breath of your dog: Dewdrop Doggie, Honeysuckle Hound, Bow Wow Bouquet. There are designer clothes, including tuxedos for small dogs. There are dog bath towels with “Stud” stitched on them, little ball caps (with holes for ears) featuring favourite sports teams, party hats, tutus, fake-diamond-encrusted collars, and an entire section dedicated to doggie bling: tiaras, charms to hang from collars, even strings of fake pearls as fat as ping-pong balls.

But this is nothing.

AT THE BIG-BOX BOOKSTORE
in the suburbs of this city, there are more publications devoted to pets than to world peace, religion, and philosophy combined. There is a book on petrosexuals, a play on that irritating “metrosexual” word that essentially stands for everything self-centred and, ultimately, meaningless. There is a distinguished-looking “Memory Book” for the assemblage of photographs, anecdotes, tributes, and final collars of the dear departed family pet.

And there are more magazines on dogs than on … children.
Modern Dog,
for example, has a cover story titled “Britney vs Spot—Trends in Dog Names.” It has a feature article on “What to Get the Dog Who Has Everything,” another on actress Shannon Elizabeth (one of
Maxim
's “hottest women in the world”), who says, “My dogs are my kids!”, and a third on the art of interviewing potential dog sitters. There are small news items of interest to modern dog owners, including the story—can this possibly be serious?—of a Hindu dog wedding held recently in India for two Labrador retrievers who met through an online doggie dating service. The bride, Diana, is described as looking “ravishing wearing traditional red.”

There are ads for $5,000 oil portraits of the family pet, ads for lines of wine—including Pinot Noir and Chardonnay—that “salute ‘man's best friend,'” and page after glossy page of haute couture advertisements for faux fur coats and collars and diamond accessories. High-end hotel chains, including Hilton and Delta, have taken out ads to let potential customers know that their pooches are more than welcome for overnight stays. Whether they get doggie points is not mentioned.