Dog Gone

A friend of mine recently had to terminate one of her dogs due to advanced age and the sudden worsening of a long-standing illness. For many years she had been spending a substantial amount of money on medication each month and had been administering said medication on a regular schedule, including a dose ‘round about midnight. I am not sure that I love my own genetic progeny that much, but, needless to say, she was broken-hearted over the death, even though she still has two other dogs to fill the void by shedding hair everywhere, rummaging through the garbage and barking at inappropriate times.

I have great empathy for her loss, having put down a dog or two in my 50 or so years, and it is never pleasant. A couple of years ago our 16 year-old Rat Terrier suffered a “major neurological event’ which left her unable to stand, eat, or drink. She was, however, still able to crap herself, which was perhaps the saddest part of it. When I transported her to the vet for assessment, I was informed she could probably be kept alive for a few weeks with intravenous rehydration and a nutritional mush fed through a tube, but that the prognosis was not good. When I inquired as to the cost of this inhumane procedure I was quoted a figure resembling the Gross Domestic Product of Bolivia. Needless to say, she died shortly thereafter.

I am sometimes still irrationally troubled by my unwillingness to spend my children’s college fund to keep our beloved pet alive for just a few more days in conditions you wouldn’t wish on Michelle Bachman, but I know I did the right thing. Kali (that was her name, pronounced Kah-lee) was a sort of grumpy clown who didn’t like children, other dogs, cats, squirrels, cold days or wet grass. She was, however, very fond of canned Alpo, watermelon, back-scratching and sleeping, and she was a faithful companion and watchdog who would growl menacingly at the Cable guy and Jehovah’s Witnesses. She only bit the kids when they really pushed her limits and she only violated her house training in the final months as she slipped into canine senility. She would not have much enjoyed the tube thing and not being able to pee on top of our other dog’s pee in the backyard would have been a deal-breaker. After the administration of $100.00 worth of sedatives, she quietly crossed over to oblivion without so much as a look of reproach and I cried for the first time in many, many years.

If you aren’t a dog lover, it is probably difficult to relate, but there is a long history of bonding between humans and canines which has evolved from a symbiotic tolerance to a full blown love affair over the course of 15,000 years, give or take. Dogs are social animals, much like us, and they know the value of reliable backup. Unlike many humans, however, almost all dogs know that to have a friend, you have to be a friend. Dogs are opportunistic survivors, like humans, and they never met an easy meal they didn’t like, even if there are cooked carrots in it. With a brain generally the size of a walnut, about half of which is devoted to operating their nose, they are limited to some pretty basic intellectual accomplishments and they probably don’t really feel all those complex emotions that we project on them, but they definitely have individual personalities and they know what they like.

Most dog owners would probably be disappointed to know that all that face licking love their new puppy gives them is just a genetically programmed effort to get them to barf up some tasty chunks. In undomesticated canines, the mothers will hunt and eat prey and return to the burrow where the pups’ face licking will stimulate regurgitation of the partially digested meat, a sumptuous meal for hungry tail-waggers. Almost all other canine behaviors that we perceive as emotional responses are programmed forms of communication which convey information on status in the pack, receptiveness to contact, indifference or anxiety. We become so attached to our canine friends that we grieve their loss just like we would a child, or at least a close cousin, while in the dogs’ simple mind the practical requirements of survival predominate and abstract concepts like love have little place. If you don’t think so, try not feeding your dogs for a week and see if your desiccated corpse isn’t discovered days later.

But that doesn’t mean that our dogs are not telling us something with all their gratifying attention, and I would like to think that the reality is superior to the fantasy. I believe that unconditional love is just a selfish genetic indulgence evolved to keep us from killing our ingrateful children, while respect is an appreciation borne of reason and logic. The dog rushes to the door and furiously wags its tail not to say “I love you” or “I missed you”, but to say “you rock; you can open a can” and “ you are a success; you can make that water thing work” and “you are the hardcore shizzle; you killed all my fleas”. Dogs are results oriented, like nature itself, while sentimentality is a luxury that only creatures with the power to control their environment can afford. Dogs are smart enough to run an emotional con on us and practical enough to know that it really is better to serve in heaven than to rule in hell, and that’s why they were here long before us, and why they will likely be here long after we are gone.