A Man and His Dog

The great pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him and not only will he not scold you, but he will make a fool of himself too. ~Samuel Butler, Notebooks, 1912

From the dog’s point of view, his master is an elongated and abnormally cunning dog. ~Mabel Louise Robinson

Our dogs will love and admire the meanest of us, and feed our colossal vanity with their uncritical homage. ~Agnes Repplier

With the exception of women, there is nothing on earth so agreeable or necessary to the comfort of man as the dog. ~Edward Jesse, Anecdote of Dogs

Dogs have given us their absolute all. We are the center of their universe. We are the focus of their love and faith and trust. They serve us in return for scraps. It is without a doubt the best deal man has ever made. ~Roger Caras

Mr. Shirty McShirty has been dogsitting for over a week now. The relationship between this man and this dog is a sight to behold. I’ve never been much of a dog person myself (Dooce…I know) partly because my mother would have disowned me (i.e. she conditioned me so) and partly because, well, they smell, the slobber, they wag, they beg, and most of them are as big as me and maybe that scares me just a little.

But Shirty McS? Definitely a dog person. He’s pretty sure he WAS a dog in a past life, and a pack leader at that. Alpha male.

The thing is, if you saw these two beasts together for a day, you’d believe it. Rover (name changed to protect the innocent) yields to S McS in every way and seemingly loves to do so. When S McS locks Rover out of his office so that he can take a sales call, Rover whimpers softly outside the door for several long minutes, and then finally concedes to curling up somewhere and pretending to sleep. When he hears S McS wrapping up the phone call, and yes, he knows, he gets up and goes to the office door which opens on cue. Bizarre.

One week and maybe a half and these two animals are bonded like the best of brothers, only one, of course is Alpha. Wherever S McS goes, Rover goes. When S McS sits in a chair, Rover climbs into his lap and I feel compelled to let you know that Rover is NO SMALL DOG. Rover is a beast. Part dalmation and part BIG DOG, he takes over S McS’s lap, half the chair, and he’s still dangling in several places. He doesn’t seem to care. He just wants to be as close as possible to his master. His master of just under two weeks.

Rover is a friendly enough dog. He’ll greet you with the usual crotch-sniffing because nothing says, “Nice to see ya” like a snout in your soft spot. That doesn’t explain the instant and un-breakable bond of these two. I swear to you, I could walk in the room with a giant bacon flavored dog bone for a head and garlands of dog bones around my neck and Rover would take his eyes off his master only long enough to shoot me a glance as if to say, “What are you trying to prove here?” and then turn his adoring gaze back to Mr. Shirty.

In fact, if I hug Shirty McShirty in Rover’s presence, he becomes extremely distressed. He sits at our feet and barks, then backs up and barks some more until we give up the nonsense. I’m afraid if I gave McShirty a love pat I might end up on the floor with some slobbery teeth on my neck.

So I get it. Man loves Dog. Dog loves Man. And that’s just how it is.