Doggie Talk

Of late I find myself talking at length to my dog – just “puppy talk” at first. Then with a more grown-up vocabulary most doting dog-owners use – and nothing beyond a dog’s mental grasp, depending on the dog’s age, experience, and IQ, so that it quickly gets the dog’s attention, maneuvering his ears like a bat to catch every nuance of my words with a wagging tail. And he knows when I’m distressed or even mildly annoyed, especially when I watch the nightly news, which he watches with me relaxed on my lap. And when I disagree with a politician’s remarks and shout expletives at him, the dog looks up at me as if to say, “I agree, that was a dumb remark the politician made,” or something like that. Or, if a particularly inane commercial makes me laugh so hard I spill my beer on his head and he joins in with a few soft barks – his way of laughing, I suppose, and lets me know he also shares my peculiar sense of humor. Of course, there are moments (more and more it seems) when I pour out my heart to him. How could I not? He’s twelve years old, and in human years he’s almost my age, and, like me, showing undisguised signs even a dog is heir to, to quote a famous saying. And then there are days when, like me, he appears overly pensive, listless, stretched out on the sofa, rug, or more often, my bed, staring blankly at the ceiling or nothing in particular. A gentle reassuring pat on the head brings him out of it, his brown eyes turning upwards at me, as if to say: Don’t be concerned, it’s just a dog thing; I have them now and then. I’ll be fine. It’s hard to know what a dog thinks at moments like that, and I don’t pretend to. Still it worries me and I do wonder: Does he, like me – and other humans – ponder about his life, his end, that condition no longer informed by the flesh? Does he look back on his life, regretting this or that course action or decision, or call to mind some youthful indiscreet behavior – who hasn’t? – that affected another dog’s life, especially a female, for the worse, and which still haunts him? That’s when he needs consoling and I open up like a father to a son. On my lap, I gently stroke his small head and in a loving soft voice, never harsh, tell him I understand. (How unlike my father when I was growing up!) Instead I bare myself open and tell him I, too, did foolish things when young, and, yes, they do surface from time to time to prick my conscience with shame and self-deprecation. With his sad eyes he seems to say, What, you too? That’s when he gives his tail an empathetic wag which I interpret to be his way of telling me that dogs and humans are not so really different after all. And then – so touching – he lifts his head with those small brown eyes and licks my face, and I become emotional, pressing his small frame against my beating heart with a warm hug, burying my face in his pelt, with its usual but mild doggie odor, and strugglingly not to release a torrent of tears lest my weakness create a lack of confidence in him for me, and from the time I brought him home from the kennel, he’s looked up to me as if I was his father and, geez, why let him down now at this late date?