Decent dog deserves respect, but not my lunch
Jack Knox
Times Colonist
Sunday, August 14, 2005
So there I am, happily parked under a Beacon Hill Park shade tree with my Chinatown barbecued pork and rice, when this stealth dog slides up by my right ear.
He's a big brute, a copper-coloured Labrador-grizzly cross, got a head like a Volkswagen, but glides in dead silent, like he's cut the motor and slipped it in neutral. One moment I'm all alone, and the next thing you know his gaping maw is RIGHT THERE, hot, foggy dog breath pumping into my eyes from the bellows in his basement. "Can I have some?" he asks.
So we share my lunch. Of course, when I say "share" it's in the same way I "share" my money with Paul Martin and Gordon Campbell, or the way Czechoslovakia "shared" the Sudetenland with Germany. At least the dog won't annex Austria or blow his portion on pre-election TV ads telling me I live in "the best place on Earth to work, play and vote Liberal."
Well, no, that's not quite what happens with the dog. What actually happens is my initial response -- screaming like a little girl and taking the Lord's name in vain -- proves to be a bit of an overreaction, albeit a highly amusing one to a passing flock of Japanese tourists. The dog, instead of devouring my lunch and/or left arm in one bite, as he could easily do, plunks down on his haunches and waits.
And waits.
Not placidly, mind you. He is clearly smitten by the smell of barbecue, ogling my meal like he's Bill Clinton and it just applied for a job at the White House, but he's still not making a move. After a minute or so of this, it slowly dawns on me that he's waiting for permission, as anxiously polite as a kid at a job interview, hair slicked down, tie too tight, trying to make a good impression and stop squirming but DAMN he wants it so bad he's just about coming out of his own skin.
So I climb down from the tree, abandon Plan B -- which involves tossing a single piece of pork toward a plump little boy with a hot dog, then bolting in the other direction -- and sit back for a better look at my new friend.
He is as big and loose-boned goofy-friendly as a farmboy three beers into his first barn dance, his face an open book. (You know that painting of dogs playing poker? This one would lose his shirt.) He may be the size of a small automobile, but he doesn't have a mean bone in his body. He's the Ron MacLean of dogs. No collar, no licence, no guile.
I think I am falling in love.
I toss the dog a piece of pork, which disappears before it hits the ground, not so much eaten as inhaled -- thwok! -- like a cat sucked into a jet engine, not that I'm suggesting anything.
"Odin!" calls a voice from the next tree over. "Get back here!"
No, Odin, don't go, I think.
Alas, Odin takes a brief, longing look at my food, then gallops off, leaving nothing but a flying string of drool in his wake. A single tear falls into my rice, plop.
Now, I won't pause here to preach about the essential goodness of dogs. ("The average dog is a nicer person than the average person," said Andy Rooney.) Nor will I inflict upon you one of those true-but-trite homilies about loyalty, unconditional love and how your dog always looks at you like you're a genius, even if you just accidentally drove into the boss's car while checking out his daughter. Odin was not my dog, was unaware of my genius and, if he felt any love, it was for my lunch, not me.
No, what was endearing about Odin was he was trying to Do The Right Thing. Could have just wolfed down my barbecue/head/car if he wanted, but didn't. Cynics will say this was just a Pavlovian response, a dim-minded reaction to a series of rolled-up newspapers across the nose in puppyhood, but cynics don't spend their lives, like Odin, striving for basic decency.
"Do the right thing," we're urged. "Do what's best, not what's best for you." And we try, not always succeeding, but trying nonetheless.
Got to like it in a human. Got to like it in a dog.