Dogs Bring Out Our Best

Dogs aren’t that great.

I mean, yes, they’re loving, they’re sweet, they do hilarious things. They’re also a massively time-consuming pain in the ass. Last week, our puppy ate another dog’s shit at daycare, threw it up in my wife’s backseat on the way home, then diarrhea-ed all over the backyard. This was not a hugely abnormal Friday evening. We did the math the other night and during a normal week, we spend a combined 38 hours taking care of her. Would be 56 hours if not for daycare days, on which we trade two walks for two drives and trade five hours of evening exuberance for five hours of evening exhausted napping. This will get better as she gets older, but we’re in literal full-time job territory when it comes to taking care of this happy, fluffy friend. Nobody talks about this publicly. Nobody talks about how much work it is to have a puppy. Nobody talks about the constant anxiety that awakens when one is tasked with keeping an animal alive when said animal’s principal desire is often to ingest things—rocks, mushrooms, garbage, rotting carcasses—that could kill it.

Why doesn’t anyone talk about it? Well, it’s taboo. Dogs are sacrosanct. You cannot criticize dogs. You will be verbally massacred if you criticize dogs. If you criticize dogs, you are heartless. You are a monster. You are the kind of person who brings an economics textbook to a Bernie Sanders rally. Yeah, sure, you might be right. But you asshole! And why is it taboo? Because people love dogs.

Why, then, do people love dogs? I’m not certain. But we’ve noticed something.

It was pointed out to us by one of the folks at daycare. I was standing in the lobby one day, waiting for them to bring a charging, pulling-on-her-leash, ready-to-shower-me-in-all-the-love-in-the-world-and-also-punch-my-nuts-because-that’s-where-her-paws-happen-to-hit-when-she-jumps-on-me Fargo out of “the Romper Room,” where she spends playtime, and the woman behind the counter said, “Fargo is the perfect dog. She likes everyone. And everyone likes her. Every person here. Every dog. She gets along with all of them.”

This was high praise, and obviously, we’re lucky to have a dog with such a wonderful temperament. But I wonder if that temperament comes in large part from how strangers have always treated our pup. Yes, Fargo is loving to everyone. But everyone is kind to Fargo, too. And the latter preceded the former.

On our drive back from the breeder (yes, adopting pets is noble and good, but my wife’s significantly allergic to dogs, so what were we to do, the breeder was kind and adores the dogs), we met a young family outside a Panera. She received their full attention. Pets. Scritches. A hug from a six-year-old. A few hours later, she was taking a dump behind a gas station, making that direct eye contact dogs make when they do that, when a big ol’ lifted pickup truck pulled around the corner and…just stopped. Just stopped, and just waited for her while the big guys inside smiled and laughed at the puppy getting breakfast out of her system in a dusty parking lot. They drove by, pop country blasting, with a friendly wave. To us and our dog.

She had to go to the vet that first week. Had to spend two nights at the vet. She was showered with love the whole time. She was showered with comfort. And in addition to love, they saved her life. After she came home, she had to stay away from other dogs for a couple weeks, but when the coast was clear, friends of ours brought their well-trained, friendly pups over to welcome her to the world outside her litter. They were gentle. They were fun. They were kind. And when they weren’t, their people pulled them away.

Not every dog is ready to play with ours, but their people know that. Their people keep them away. Fargo has, in her entire life, had exactly two bad experiences with other dogs, and in one of those the dog was just being territorial about a toy. Both were over within moments, Fargo whisked away to friends or the safety of the backseat. Of course Fargo loves everybody—everybody loves her. Of course Fargo gets along with all the other dogs—every dog she’s ever met, bar those two, has been one well set to get along with her.

In these moments—someone waving at Fargo across the street when their dog can’t handle playing, someone rolling down their window at a stoplight to say hello through the windows, a waiter laughing it off with pets and pats when Fargo takes the bowl of water they just filled for her and splashes it all over the patio at a bar (or when she tries to steal the plate of food they’re taking to another customer)—people are being their best. They’re being their kindest. Even if the puppy’s being a demanding, annoying twerp.

And so I wonder if part of why dogs are so great is not anything that really has to do directly with what dogs are like, but is instead what we’re like around dogs. We’re kind around them. We’re happy around them. Something about dogs brings out our best. Yes, this ties back to dogs, but again—many a dog can make a house a living hell at times. And so, with the population that adores dogs (yes, I know this isn’t the entire population—there are many who don’t like dogs, or who treat dogs badly, here’s the obligatory acknowledgement of the existence of those subsets), I don’t think it’s as simple as, “We love dogs.” I don’t think that’s what comes first. I think it’s more that we love ourselves when we’re with dogs. Because those are the selves we want to always be.