Is it my imagination or do some of us begin flat-out doting on our pets once we’re past the halfway mark – while others begin the countdown toward a pet-free life?
I’m going to talk here about the dote-rs, not the adios-ers. Particularly, I’m going to talk about dog-doters.
All these years we’ve loved our dogs as dogs but as we’ve aged, our dogs have slowly been upgraded to our equals. This shift in our regard for our companion creatures can’t necessarily be attributed to the “empty nest” syndrome because I have plenty of friends who are not parents, yet they have become equally as pet-struck as the empty-nesters.
Now I’ve always been crazy about our dog Sammy, but lately I’ve begun to appreciate her dog love for me. Why? Because after decades of dealing with the world and its occasionally overwhelming piles of junk, it’s refreshing to be greeted at the door by someone who is downright ecstatic to see you simply because you returned home again. Even if that “someone” barks instead of talks. And even if that “someone” occasionally leaves scooter marks on your rug.
My family rescued our dog Sammy from the pound when she was – one, two years old? She’s a golden lab/Satan mix. We’ve had her for 10 years now and she has always been crazy in love with me, but only now do I finally feel flattered instead of exasperated by it. Let me explain because that sounds a little callous.
Without a doubt – and I hope you don’t take offense – but my dog Sammy loves me more than your dog (fill in your dog’s name here) loves you. I know this in the same way that I know my right hand is attached to my right arm. It’s an unassailable fact. But sometimes I wish that my right hand was attached to the middle of my back (like now, when I’m stuck for a metaphor) just as sometimes I wish that my dog Sammy loved me merely as much as your dog loves you.
My dog Sammy’s love for me is warrior-level love. If you cut off all four of her legs and her tail, she’d use her tongue for traction to get to me if I was in the next room. If someone did that to your dog, you’d probably have to take it to a hospital.
And even though I’ve always known that Sammy’s love for me borders on the maniacal, I have only now begun to appreciate it. The rest of me may be going to hell, but she still sees me as a goddess – even when she sees me naked, which is kind of creepy actually. Her adoration is finally beginning to pay off (for her!) in $10.99 a pound Boar’s Head thinly sliced EverRoast chicken as a treat . . . while the humans in our household eat frozen thin-crust pizza.
Sammy’s mission in life has always been to ferociously protect me from danger on our daily walks – especially from things that I don’t consider threats, like old ladies in walkers or newborn babies in strollers. On every walk – STILL TO THIS DAY! – Sammy ambushes me with a psychotically crazed reaction to some peculiar danger I hadn’t noticed. She has red-alerted me to countless falling leaves that could have sliced my jugular vein and to random breezes that could have suffocated me. Does your dog bark at air? My nerves are so permanently jingly- jangled from years of adrenalin rushes that crackheads on freeway off-ramps now nod at me in fellowship. How can I tell them, “No, really, it’s my dog that’s doing this to me!” Yeah, right. Just give me the money, lady.
But I have begun to learn life lessons from Sammy. To my regret, it has dawned on me that if I had possessed Sammy’s capacity for relentless, single-minded, passionate devotion, I would have fully developed all of my major and minor talents by now. In other words, I’d be a royal pain in the ass too, but just for different reasons.
But the main way I’ve changed is that I get more weak-in-the-knees now when Sammy gives me her dog smile. And sometimes she gives me a particularly intimate form of her dog smile, which makes me wonder if she’s coming on to me. Not sexually. But in a sort of Moony (remember the Moonies?) way. The laser-beam gaze she aims at me is filled with equal parts of heat and patience. Her eyes whisper “I love you so very, very much, my homo-sapien friend!” but her mouth just hangs there in a gin smile while she breathes deeply.
It’s the sort of look that I imagine George Clooney receives throughout the day from women he doesn’t even know and whose poop he has never scooped. When Sammy gives me that woozy, adoration-encrusted look, I feel very powerful and Movie-Starrish but — most of all — I feel like “Oh come on, girl! I love you too! But you’re not sleeping in my bed tonight.”
I never thought that I’d feel the same emotional reaction as George Clooney to an over-the-top woman (even if mine’s a dog), but there you have it.
So even though you think I’ve been talking all this time about getting older and appreciating your pet’s unconditional love for you, the real moral of the story is this: If you’re George Clooney, you don’t need a dog.
Follow Her Busy Life!