Dogs As Masters

Today I read a story on NPR’s web site titled “How Dogs Evolved into ‘Our Best Friends.’”  The expert interviewed was Mark Derr, who wrote “From Wolves to Our Best Friends.” 

Derr discounts both of the main theories on the domestication of wolves into dogs: 1) humans domesticated wolves that hung out around human groups to scavenge our refuse and 2) humans tamed wolf pups and kept them. Derr instead argues that wolves and humans, as two equal beings who saw the benefit of hunting together selected each other because of the mutual hunting advantages.  As wolves worked and lived with humans, the wolves eventually became wolf-dogs and then the pets, hunters, and the all-around helper-companions we know as dogs today.

I rather like Derr’s argument about how dogs and our relationships to them have evolved.  But I am not sure I buy the argument that today they are our companions or merely our best friends.  In fact, I’d say dogs are now our masters, not the other way around.  Sure, I know people often spend a lot of money for their dogs.  And for veterinary care. And for food and grooming and toys.  Dogs even allow us the illusion we are in charge.

For example, give a dog a walk, make a friend.  Give a dog two walks and he is your BFF.  Take the walk three times together and you have created a canine entitlement.  No longer are you giving your dog a treat.  Rather you are fulfilling your purpose in his life.

Think about it: who is feeding whom?  Who is taking whom to medical care?  And back to the walking thing.  For every dog I have “owned,” once I walked that dog three days in a row at about the same time of day, I no longer had an option to sit on the couch and let the dog out in the yard.  You would think after this same experience with multiple dogs I would have learned something.  But no.  New puppy or adopted older dog, I take him or her for a walk.  I forget the “three-day-in-a-row” rule.  And it happens again.  I am the slave, he is the master.

Suddenly, the walk becomes a canine right.  A right that inclement weather, inconvenience, or a broken foot doesn’t change. 

On the other hand, would I get out every day and exercise in the park if my dog didn’t insist?  At least my dog, I mean master, is taking as good care of my health as I am of his.  I just hope we are close to the summit of our mutually-evolving relationship.

My Dog Is Smarter Than Me

Here it is a beautiful fall day, sunny with a light breeze and comfortable, only slightly-cool temperature.  About as perfect a day as you get in the Ohio River Valley, at least if you don’t count grass and ragweed pollen.  Of course, I do count those.  But Schatzie, the dog, does not. 

I sit at the computer, reading and writing, returning phone calls and emails, checking with a few friends on facebook. Hardly a substitute for real interaction.  At least a dog knows that.  He all buts gets his leash and puts it on me to take me out of the house, across the street to the park for a walk. 

The day is spectacular.  The interactions are impersonal but pleasant.  A nod and a smile to the two young women who have finished their tennis game.  A look at the woman dressed in dark, heavy clothes, more suited to another climate or several months later in the year.  She walks the path with her head buried in a hardback.  Well, that is another way to read and get a little fresh air.  Another couple of young people pass with their cell phones to their ears.  And an older couple head off briskly in the opposite direction on the path.  The woman in running shorts with a mechanical leg jutting out of the left side of her shorts opening. 

I pass some cars parked along the park road.  A match game.  Who drives the Toyotas?  Could be anyone.  The Chevy truck?  Maybe the tennis players.  They would look good in it.  The new Caddy with the fancy-schmantcy wheel covers?  I am guessing the white haired, athletic-looking man who alternates running and walking.  Or is that type casting?  I could sit on a bench and watch when they leave.

My dog may be smarter than me but he has not yet mastered an Obama-like “cool”.  The bull dog behind the iron fence bordering the park barks and snarls, trying in vain to chew his way out.  Apparently he has some unknown score to even with Schatzie.  Schatzie has avoided chasing the runners, approaching the tennis women whom he is curious about, or even barking at some earlier dogs.  But the bull dog is too much. The insults just must be returned in dog-land etiquette.

I think Schatzie is saying, as much for my benefit as his, “Hold me back.  I don’t want to have to go over there and teach him some manners.”  I hold him back.  One of the passing runners chuckles at the sight.  If I am going to teach Schatzie the art of the impersonal walk I suppose I need to get him a book or some headphones.

Remebering the Doggy Dementia Pills

Some days it is hard to remember what needs to be done.  Even being retired there are endless projects.  Things I start and never finish.  Things I never even get to. Organize files.  Respond to emails.  Keep up with friends on Facebook.

Remembering most of the usual stuff is not too difficult once you have a routine.  There is a comfort to the rhythm of stacking the dishwasher, making the bed, tidying up a little in the family room.  None of these chores is a problem to remember.  Remembering to walk and feed the dog has not been a problem since he always has been good at reminding us.

But one particular memory problem recently has emerged.  The dog, a twelve-year-old sheltie I inherited when my Mom died, recently has taken to sleeping like the dead during daylight hours and then coming alive like a vampire, or a teenager, after dark.

I am lucky.  As a sound sleeper I am impervious to the sounds a dog makes, whether it is whining, or just banging and bumping into doors.  Not so my husband.  We’ve tried all the obvious remedies: extra daytime attention, playing, extra walks (mostly for the dog, not my husband), even an antihistamine and xanax, prescribed by the veterinarian for previous doggy nervousness when traveling (and, yes, imagine trying to convince the pharmacist that the Xanax really is for a dog named Schatzie).  So we resorted to consulting the expert again.

To our surprise, “confusion of days and nights” is one of the early symptoms of doggy dementia.  Thus, in the hopes of quiet nights and sleep for all, our dog now is prescribed a daily dose of an expensive doggy dementia pill.  Who knew dogs stay up all night and sleep all day when they get a little demented?  And that there was a pill for it?  

So now, added to the routine is another daily chore, giving the dog his dementia pill.  But we have found ourselves asking, “Did you give the dog his pill today?  Or was that yesterday?”  Do we risk giving him a second pill?  And at $3 a pill, do we want to possibly waste the pill and maybe even hurt the dog?  Or will an extra dose help even more? 

Or maybe we are approaching this from the wrong perspective.  Perhaps my spouse should just take sleeping pills, or try the antihistamine and Xanax combination.  Even if they did not work for the dog they might work for him.  Then he could just ignore the bumps in the night. 

On the other hand, if these doggy dementia pills really treat early-stage dementia, why are we wasting them on the dog?  If we take them ourselves we might remember all of the other things we keep forgetting.

Dorothy’s Idea for the Day: Do something fun every day, just for yourself.  Then you will feel like doing something fun with, to, or for someone else.