Why Do I LOVE Dogs??

An Indecipherable Puzzle

I posted a version of this piece a few years ago, when I had just started posting on Substack. Then this past weekend I decided to rewrite and illustrate it. So I am now going to post it again to provide a distraction from all the awful stuff that is going on. And I’m not even going to mention which awful stuff. That would just remind you. You know which awful stuff. Pick the part of it you want to think about least. THAT part. On the bright side, what a wealth of choices!!

Anyway, the reason I originally wrote it was because I was thinking about how, after many years of therapy and pop-psychology book consumption, I can no longer tolerate being around human narcissists. I don’t care about their tragic self doubts, their need for praise or the roots of their pain. I’m done watching them see-saw back and forth between grandiosity and humiliation. It took a long time but they finally bore me..

HOWEVER, I willingly and enthusiastically overlook every obvious behavioral red flag commonly associated with narcissism when I see it exhibited by my dogs. And the red flags of which I speak are pretty hard to ignore. They are more like termite tents than flags.

Let’s start with the way they insist on being the center of attention every single moment we spend together. And even after I willingly agree to put their needs first, none of them has ever reciprocated by bothering to make a single personal inquiry about me. I am not exaggerating when I say that I have spent so much time making sure my dogs are happy that it’s almost inconceivable that not ONE of them has any idea what I do for a living. Even more insulting, the number of them that has ever shown the slightest inclination for learning to speak more than a single word of English is ZERO. And that word is cookie.

Number 2. The gaslighting that goes on in all areas of our relationship is off the charts. Every day I watch myself voluntarily enabling the kind of narcissistic responses from them that I would never tolerate from a member of my own species. For example, if my brother woke me up at 5:30 AM by jumping on top of me and then continued to stand on the bed, poking at me and yelling “Are you just going to lay there sleeping forever? I’m starving. ”under no circumstances would this behavior make me smile because I was finding it adorable.

Another example: if  my grandmother sat down on the floor beside me while I was in the middle of writing, firmly placed her head on my knee, and began staring up at me, while also intermittently letting out a loud moan of agony to remind me that she would like me to drop everything I was doing and take her out for a walk, I can assure you that I would want to spend less time with her, not more.

In fact, I would immediately start googling assisted living options..

Admittedly my dogs aren’t the only problematic house guests who have ever upset my routine with their incompatible bedtimes and irritating menu requests. But in every case where a human was involved, as soon as they departed I would take steps to do whatever was necessary to make sure there was never going to be a repeat performance. So why is it that when it comes to my dogs, I not only overlook every intrusive and/or disgusting act but also insist that they continue living with me indefinitely, free of charge, in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall live. And I do this knowing in advance that each one of them have a very exacting set of meal time specifications, several of which are expensive and require me to gather the ingredients for complicated recipes that require lengthy shopping trips to the far corners of the city.

Which brings me to this central puzzle: WHY do I continue to make exceptions for my dogs that I would never make for any of their human counterparts. I would never tolerate it if any of my human dinner guests stood around in the kitchen while I was cooking, staring at me, pleading and sobbing for me to give them a tiny morsel of food.

And if I did give in to the constant pressure and offer them a tiny piece of something, just to quiet them down, and they then gulped it down in a single swallow without even chewing it, apparently unaware of the streams of whatever it was that are now dripping off their noses and chins, I would definitely not be inspired to say “awww” and then run off to find my phone so I could remember the moment forever by taking photos. No. I would also not be moved to flatter them by describing to them their breathtaking levels of goodness.

Meanwhile, there is NO quid pro quo with my dogs. Zero.In fact, to repay me for all my kindnesses, one of my dogs (who shall remain nameless) tried, repeatedly, and without remorse to literally dissemble my house. On several occasions, when I left him alone, he ate past the painted wood interior straight thru to the dry wall and was headed beyond when I was forced to hire a handyman who attached metal sleeves to all the chewed up windowsills and door jams. At one point, as said handyman was sinking concrete under the fence in the backyard so that the dog couldn’t tunnel out, he looked at me like he thought I was feeble minded and said “You must really want this dog to stick around.” And for the first time in my life, I, who pride myself on always having a come-back, could not think of any response. Instead, in my endless search for a solution to what had been diagnosed as this particular dog’s “separation anxiety” I actually contemplated having his teeth removed.

So I can’t really explain why, for much of my life, I have voluntarily put up with the kind of endless unnecessary expenses and personal embarrassments that I would under NO CIRCUMSTANCES tolerate from a human being. All I can think of is that my deep attachment to what I think of as “their smiling faces” has caused me to accept the fact that, as entirely different species, we are largely incomprehensible to each other. Therefore I fill the void of my unanswered questions about their actions by supplying adorable motives, no matter how disruptive or peculiar they appear to be.

Here’s a perfect example: If my husband insisted on busting in through the bathroom door and running up to kiss me every single time I sat down on the toilet, then stood there staring at me, mesmerized, I would immediately make an appointment with a therapist where the entire incident would become a central topic of discussion not just that day but for the rest of my life.

And yet when my dogs do it, I somehow find it endearing because recently it has occurred to me that they might see this as something important we have in common.

A final example: For years, when I walked in the front door, my dog Beau used to be so glad to see me that he immediately searched for a stuffed animal to take with him when he ran under the dining room table.

Whenever this happened, I would always laugh and explain to anyone accompanying me that he did this because he was so happy I was home. But to be honest…if I saw a child do that when his mother walked into the room, I’d place a call to Child Protective Services.

So summing up, I guess the weird part is that despite all my complaints, I plan to continue looking past all of these baffling and distasteful shortcomings indefinitely. Because I continue to feel thrilled that I am allowed to have a whole other species for a roommate. Sure, there does appear to be a communication gap between us that is so huge it’s more accurately called a communication chasm. But then again, I have had human roommates with unsavory habits who were immeasurably more irredeeming.

Meanwhile, there are so many entertaining moments contained in every day of a life among dogs, most without dire consequences. And I think it’s probably a good thing to be constantly reminded that whenever the day hits a low point, all that is really required to push everything back into gear might just be a cookie.