Dog People
The history of mankind’s relationship with dogs goes back to before the dawn of man. Waiting for the right creatures to whom they could give their loyalty, dogs had to wait out the Paleolithic, the Metazoan, the Precambrian eras, avoiding dinosaurs that tromped and flew about, surviving ice ages, asteroid impacts, massive volcanic explosions, and nuclear winters. Homo Erectus, as well as preceding humanoid versions didn’t smell or act right, but finally, Homo Sapiens were here, and the great bonding began.
Some argue that God herself gave unto man as the greatest boon the noble dog, knowing that without the presence of these creatures, humans would soon perish, due basically to confusion about the gift and purpose of life, and the connectedness of us all. And so centuries, nay, millennia, passed during which dogs traveled with caravans, guarded livestock, helped with hunting, pulled sleds though snow and did many kinds of service. And during all this time, they were, generally speaking, not respected, as is the case even today in some cultures.
They were creatures to be kicked or yelled at, or at which to throw something or to be eaten. But the divinity, if I may, of dogs, could not be unrealized forever, and the evolution of our greater appreciation began.
Today, especially in the western world, there are dog magazines, dog organizations, dog shows, dog movies, dog cartoon characters, Lassie reruns, YouTube dog videos infinitum, and people everywhere walking, running, skating, biking, driving and flying with their dogs. A typical news or magazine article would be headlined with, “America’s Best Dog Parks, or ‘Dogs In The Military- Saving Soldiers’ Lives in Afghanistan.”
A service dog or a panic-preventing dog is now a privileged being that has some serious access. That could be a fabulous upgrade from an abusive or utterly disinterested spouse. Such a dog might even go up to its owner and paw an arm to let them know their blood sugar is dangerously low (there are noses, and then there are NOSES!), or that their coal and oil stocks are about to plunge.
And now we have so many purebreds, and custom mixes, such as the Labradoodle, or a Dameranian, from a Dachshund and a Pomeranian. I find it interesting that our society apparently feels far more outrage when someone has intentionally and lethally thrown a dog onto the freeway, than when a person has been the victim. You might say that’s because the dogs are obviously helpless, especially if they’re small, but for Mr. serial freeway thrower, the Chihuahua was able to put up a desperate last second hand biting struggle, while Grandma simply asked, “Why are we stopped here, Fred? I can’t see any theater.”
So what actually are Dog People? Are they the breeders, the vets, the dog show pros, or anyone who’s adopted a dog? Families with a few dogs? There are all too many dog owners who like dogs. That would be why they have a dog, I suppose. They’re not bad people, and a canine might be way better off with them than how they were previously.
But an examination of their DNA sequencing would reveal the absence of the canine gene that is that is found in .004% of humans. Probably there are countless respectable owners and people who work extensively with dogs whom I would compare to Nurse Ratched, from Ken Kesey’s “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest.” She spends all her working life with her patients, visibly caring for them in so many ways, and yet she has no real affectionate connection of love for a single one of them. They’re patients first, not human beings. Of course, there’s a touch of evil written into her baggage, and my comparison may seem unfair in making a point. With dogs it would be, ‘Oh sure, some of them are so cute and friendly. Now and then Tom wants to get one, but we’re not sure the cat will get along.”
Not all dog people own dogs. But they are compelled to pour out their affections with just about any favorite breed that won’t bite. Once when my wife and son and I were about to go on green through a crowded intersection, a man abandoned his car and came running up to our car, hoping to be able to touch the huge head of Romeo, our 125 pound Lab/Tosa mix, which protruded ostentatiously from the rear window in golden smiling glory. “I’m sorry,” he panted, “I just had to, you know, see this dog up close! Can I pet him?” One might think, with horns starting to object, that the guy was a bit out there, but I totally identified with his mission. I too have on many occasions had to somewhat chase
an owner to catch up for a moment with a fine looking big dog. Mostly, I need, yes need, to pet and feel the head, and have some quality eye contact. I like to give them some thumping pats on the most resonant part of their chest sides, and tell them what a fine solid dog they are.
And then away go I, feeling somehow just….better. For dog people, the finest smell on earth is not the mouth-watering smells coming from the kitchen and almost ready dinner, or the heady “mmmm” of Gardenias, Jasmin and such, or even of a certain sexual female smell, which many men safely claim to other men be the finest. But DP’S can’t help it if the most wonderful, intoxicating aroma-therapeutic smell in the world is clean dog fur. They know that the top of the head is usually the most satisfying, like people kissing the tops of baby’s heads, which to me always smell like vanilla baby biscuits. The fur will smell slightly different on the upper part of the bridge of the nose, and on dog’s back, or side or paws, and the pads of their paws, if relatively clean, often smell remarkably like popcorn!
Hounds, Labs, and mixes therein have more oil in their coats, and tend to have gamier smelling fir. They’re kind of like the blue cheeses of coats, except the smell is not just strong but good. There’s a world of olfactory wonder, earth and wild in those coats. The top of a lab’s head, or other short hair hound-ish mixes, clean but not smelling of shampoo, is pure aroma therapy for me. I could easily trade a wine tasting afternoon for a sampling of local Pointer, Lab and Dalmatian heads. Would I need a designated driver? Possibly. Fletcher, our medium size family dog of my teen years, a mostly black Lab/Pointer, sported a head that was aged in a forest of aromatic Bishop Pine. Pure trans-portative heaven, and hopelessly addictive! He was the most demonstrative and fastest licker I have ever encountered and could smatter your entire mouth and nose area with eight to ten licks in two seconds, his standard thank you after being fed.
Are there elephant people? And giraffe people? Not easy to get their whiff fixes anywhere above the shoulder without a ladder. I wonder if there are cobra people, who’s eyes go goo-goo when the back of the scaly head is pressed tight to their nose. Well, we all know how powerful a sense smell is, when a moment of smell coming from somewhere can transport us back in time to something wonderfully positive, and change our mood in an instant. Frequently seen in movies is the scene where the lone spouse, soldiering on, holds a piece of their beloved’s clothing to their nose and inhales deeply, giving in to painful nostalgia. What they don’t show, and it would warm a DP’s heart, is that the dog person spouse is then going to get the old, long unused dog bed out of a closet, put it on the floor and bury their nose in that, the even more excruciating nostalgia be damned.
I’ve often imagined the cologne ad I’d see on TV, where the handsome stud, walking slow-mo through the party to greet his beautiful date, is turning lots of model worthy pretty heads after he’s walked by. A sultry female voice simply intones, “Hound- For the dog in you.” There’s a quick shot of the cologne bottle, handsomely styled with a noble hound profile on the label. For all I know, sales could be surprisingly brisk. The makers might point to the new rush to try the powers of dog pheromones, of course inviting some interesting banter about another highly disapproved of level of dog people. But I won’t go there, wherein lie the parallels to sheep people, and private shearing contests and gatherings. Hey, I don’t make the minute percentages, and I don’t judge either, for I have long since accepted my minor deviance.
One time I was driving with a DP friend of mine, and while waiting for a light to change we noticed, two lanes over, a gorgeous looking pointer mix of some kind enjoying the day in his back-seat ride in a convertible. The driver, a stunning blonde, saw us staring, and thinking we were checking her out, sort of pushed her hair out of the way so we could we could be maximally impressed. But when the light went green, and the moment passed, we both started chuckling, knowing she had at least partially been right. But, ah…. it was the dog dilating our pupils. It’s not something controllable. Certainly nothing to be proud of, but neither to be ashamed of either. If it weren’t protected under the law of dog love, there would be a hint of perversion, our source of humor. Dog people must at least occasionally be considerate, though in visibly over appreciating (can there be such a thing?) a dog in front of spouses and steadies, stirring feelings of jealousy and inferiority. My beloved wife once half joked to her sister that she should simply pay to have a really realistic Romeo mask made for her to wear. She’s quite good, I must say, at making a point.
It seems that when I see someone who’s broken down and is crying in public, either alone or being comforted by friends or someone, and there could be endless reasons for the emotion, it so often turns out that the person has just had to put their dog down. Of course, it’s hard for most dog owners, and for DP the word I would use, and hear a lot, is “friggin’ brutal.” Tears can practically jump out of the eyes of DPs, even years after the passing of their beloved when they talk about the event.
Briefly dealing with a bout of middle of the night dry eye, I declined my opthamologist’s offer for a sample prescription of artificial tears, knowing I’d simply have to think of Romeo’s final moments with us at home as the good-bye shots took effect, and that’s the end of that dry eye. No need to get up for anything. There’s never totally getting over it, and a nice little very accessible nest of pain is always handy, occupying a huge portion of prime real estate in the heart. So it is. In the Bible it says, “Yea, and tho some dogs shall be of name and some shall not, and some shall serve, and some shall not, in vain there will be gnashing of teeth, and wailing of sorrow, when it is that one or many of God’s most noble creature doth pass from the earth. For their loyalty is as the loyalty of Gabriel, and evermore shall be.” Deuteronomy 6:14. Or one of the books. Heck, I can’t remember which.
I was curious to peek into what other people have written in praise of the noble beast, and was not surprised to find vast stores of eloquent and profound praise. One interesting way we glorify canines is to say, that we or someone worked like a dog. Sure, there are working dogs, and some work really hard, but most, where we use that phrase, don’t work at all. That’s not their role. We also say “Doggonit!” replacing the more objectionable “Goddamnit” with “Dog, hear my trouble & make it go away.” And “dogging” is being persistent in pursuit. Who’s the top dog around here? And there are challenging “dog legs “or long holes with a blind turn on golf courses, and “dog tags” for servicemen and women. And so on. My ideal bumper sticker would say, “It’s a Doggy-Dog World.”
And so the recognition of dogs shall march on. It could have been that there were never anything like dogs. We wouldn’t be going around saying, “Hey wait a minute! Weren’t there supposed to be these things here, you know, animals about this big, that….sort of looked like…?” But they are here. A genuine kindness, a personal gift, a genuine boon. Perhaps it shall not be until alien spaceships land, and with our massive weaponry trained on the doors and descending ramps, out will bound dogs, happy and excited to be outside again, noses in overdrive, and hearts and eyes set for love, the grand prize.