BLESSED BE THE DOG
Dogs running
Dogs running
BLESSED BE THE DOG
My dog has but one eye. He was the beginning of things. Just how far he has controlled my destiny, just how far he has shaped the lives of those about him, will never be known until the dull human mind has evolved a keener perception of the real values of life and has learned to become conscious of influences too subtle to be recognized by man in his present fallen estate. This is certain: he was the beginning of things. It was he who opened the door and led the way.
I have always felt that I owe that dog an apology which only a life of devotioncan express. The bitter truth is—I bought him. What I paid for him is one of those personal secrets which will remain locked in my bosom to the end of time. It is one of those sacred things that even an Internal Revenue Inspector must dismiss in reverent awe, and the Head of the Household must rest content with the explanation that there are but two hidden things in my life: one is the price paid for the dog in question and the other is the extent of my devotion to my wife. After the matter is presented in these terms, further inquiry seems indelicate.
But the bitter fact remains—I did buy him. A dog should never be purchased, should never be made the subject of barter and dickering. A dog may be rescued from abuse, he may be bestowed and accepted as a gift, he may be borrowed and never returned, he may be found and kept, and, in cases of real necessity, he may be stolen in a dignified manner; but he should never be bought. I have heard of men who make a livelihood from the purchase and sale of dogs. I can conceive of them as good husbandsand kind fathers, but they still seem to me inhuman monsters, engaged in a sinister traffic.
There seems to be one relationship in a social structure now completely dissected and exposed under the microscope of social investigators, which remains inviolate—a relationship which owes its immunity from investigators to the stupidity characteristic of investigators who ignore the significant and tear the obvious and unimportant into worthless tatters. That relationship is the profoundly significant one existing between a good, bad, or indifferent child and a dog.
With what wealth of ritual do we bestow a name upon a child; with what ecstasies of formality do we celebrate her taking a mate; and yet with what casual indifference do we give that child the first dog! We create a contact—as our scientific friends like to call it—the importance of which no one can conjecture, with a callous unconcern that is the only proper measure of our ignorance.
Here if anywhere is an excuse for formality and the most elaborate and significant ritual. Here is a real chance for genuine good cheer and the sincerest merrymaking, quite unlike that forced and somewhat doubting hilarity that characterizes the average marriage-feast. For in this case we perform the one act allowed us in this earthly pilgrimage in which we are sure to be right: we cannot make a mistake. And certainly when that crowning moment of our existence comes—when as in the fairy tale we make the one wish allowed us—we should do it with a high degree of decorum and with all decent elaboration of detail.
I say we cannot make a mistake—I mean from the child’s standpoint. We may create a relationship trying to the dog, by giving him to a very inferior child upon whom he must lavish years of loving instruction before improvement appears, but we cannot hurt the child by giving him a bad dog, for the simple reason that there is no such thing, broadly speaking, as a bad dog.
There is the occasional dog, of course, who has not withstood the corrupting influences of human associations as well as his more fortunate brothers, but even he is vastly better than no dog at all.
And once the contact made, the relationship established, what unlimited vistas of speculation lie temptingly before the reflective mind! Those two little figures on the hearthrug—one in the image of man, one showing the sleek and perfect lines of a half-wild creature. Two heads together—one of tousled gold, the other close-cropped and tapering to nostrils of nervous sensitiveness; a relaxed and callous paw held firmly in a dimpled human hand. What are they saying to each other? What lies back of those limpid canine eyes, half closed to the glare and warmth of the hearthstone? Something is going on between them, some delicate transmission of emotion, thought, or stimulus, which we know is infinitely good for the soul of the child and we can hope does no harm to the dog.
An unfamiliar footstep is heard, and thepicture changes. The relaxed and languid creature is transformed in an instant from a musing, tolerant playmate to a bristling bundle of potential destruction. He stands, alert and vibrant, muscles tense, set for any contingency, ready for any emergency and any sacrifice. The emergency passes, and with an apologetic shake to relieve the tension of his muscles and a half-sneeze to clear the dryness of expectant fangs, he settles once more upon the hearthrug, to resume his mystic communion with the only person in the household with whom he is on terms of complete mutual understanding.
These are the perfect hours of childhood and doghood. They pass, like all perfect things, and are followed by long hours of separation, while the child is absent in one of those institutions ingeniously contrived to remove him from the priceless opportunities of improvement in the society of a dog and to lighten the duties of idle parents, in exchange for a fleeting familiarity with what is cryptically called the “l.c.d.” And while the child is incarcerated in one ofthose centres of juvenile infection what prodigies of patience does the dog perform!
In my own case there happen to be two avenues of return from these dreary absences, and for long before the hour of arrival they must be watched. Owing to the entire absence of one eye this is a delicate operation, but Cerberus has found one point where with the least muscular exertion he can sweep his tiny horizon with his one remaining eye. And so he waits—not with the imbecile nervous tension and restless pacing of his master, but relaxed and resting.
Suddenly he becomes alert. The peculiar rattle of a certain rear wheel on a certain automobile is recognized by those miraculous ears long before the solitary eye can see the car. He is off—the long vigil is over. Once more life is sweet and full of interest and adventure.
It is idle to prate of the lessons he teaches. They have been told and retold. Patience, loyalty, devotion—we know them all. It is in the finer shades of his relationship withthose about him that his quality appears. His is a wonderful life. Countless hours are spent in investigation. Every nook and cranny, every tree and every stone, every dark and mysterious hole, every living creature in pasture, garden, or stable must be run to earth. What sort of data is he gathering, I wonder? What use does he make of it? I do not know; but it is being stored away and tabulated for future reference in a vastly more usable and convenient form than any card index devised by the bungling brain of his master.
These are the busy hours of dog life. How often we encounter him bent on some important errand! I have a friend, the only adult I ever met who really knows a dog—and by the same token he is that rare thing, the gentleman. He too enjoys a long and solitary tramp, and he often meets on the highways and in the wood paths his various canine acquaintances bent on matters of importance. He makes a practice of saluting them with a cordial but respectful “Good morning” or “Good afternoon,”with perhaps a passing allusion to the fine weather. This by way of tribute to a fellow creature with mutual tastes.
But Cerberus knows that all work and no play is a dangerous method of life, and so hours are devoted to recreation. The duties of guardianship and the demands of education are laid aside, and he shows us how to play. Madly, intently, with no thought of appearances, he rushes into play, preferably with others but alone if necessary; and the simplest things suffice—a stick, a stone, a floating bit of feather is all he needs. No elaborate toy, no calculated programme, no long planning, no arguments and disagreements as to theterminus ad quem, resulting in half-hearted enjoyment or utter boredom (the usual result of human recreations), nothing but utter abandonment to the pleasure of the moment. I envy Cerberus his play more than I ever envied my neighbor’s laboriously acquired and oppressive wealth.
Play over, then comes rest—rest as complete and perfect as the play. Stretched onthe grass or before the fire, relaxed and languid, every muscle slack and every nerve quiet, he sinks to slumber profound and absolute. Sometimes a bit of joyous memory steals into his slumbering mind; an ear will cock, a paw will twitch, but for an instant, and he is again at perfect peace.
Then the call will come. Duty summons in the form of some sound inaudible to human ears, some suspicious odor too delicate to disturb a human nostril, and he is up. Back in harness, recreated, rested, ready for any demand upon that marvelous supply of nervous energy. And a neurasthenic generation wonders at it, while Cerberus patiently tries to teach by actual practice the simplest rudiments of health to a stupid and inattentive class of grown-up dunces.
That much vaunted and greatly overestimated thing called intellectual life, which humans use as a convenient excuse for all sorts of self-indulgence, is to Cerberus only the nice adjustment of dog data, knowledge, and experience to the needs of his complex relationships with those about him. Theseadjustments are delicate and intricate, for Cerberus lives, moves, and has his being, not in a world of understanding fellow-dogs, but with creatures duller than he and filled with every form of prejudice and conceit. Add to this the fact that these same folk represent to him not men and women, but for all practical purposes of immediate recognition and other important dog-matters nothing more nor less than a moving forest of male and female legs. How would you prosper, my proud dog-baiting relative, if your point of view was from eight to fifteen inches above ground, and if your horizon line could be extended beyond a few paltry yards only by a painful lifting of the head or the securing of some vantage point for observation? I fear, my friend, you would cut a much sadder figure than Cerberus at his worst.
And so his days pass. They are full of work and rest and play and, above all, a constant effort to square his dog mind to a man world. He does it pretty well; he does it better, on the whole, than mansquares his to a God-made world. At least, his effort seems more sincere, his attitude vastly more dignified and honest.
The day’s work is over. Childish hands are clasped in slumber, maternal cares are soothed in the first sweet sleep of night, and paternal irritabilities are in the process of partial elimination by pipe and book and armchair and open fire.
Cerberus lies with his head across his master’s foot, a convenient arrangement allowing contact to replace sight on the blind side; and the seeing side commands the door. The autumn wind sways bare branches against the tiny house. Faint odors of apples and other products of the little farm seep up from the cellar, where in modest store they flank the winter’s firewood piled in orderly array. The year is dying. Cerberus stirs in his sleep. I lay my hand upon his lean side. I pause to feel the rapid beating of his little heart, scarcely slowed at all, even in sleep. Would that some power could slow it down; it will wear out all too soon—and then!
A door creaks. He rises; no bristling fury, no growling menace, only an orderly and methodical investigation of every corner of the room and hall. Then a dignified return and sleep resumed. A subtle compliment to his master’s competence, a mere gesture of coöperation with a trusted superior—this is one of those delicate adjustments of dog life to a man-made world. Of these Cerberus is a past master.
He sleeps. His “trusted superior” glances at the title of the book he reads and lays it on the table. No need to read now, when Cerberus teaches. The book is a scholarly treatise onThe Mastery of Nerves.
Dog sleeping on foot