Talking to My Dog

I knew I had written something about Ally, my dog who was recently and mercifully killed, but I couldn’t find it. I’ve written lots of things I didn’t know what to do with and where I put them is anybody’s guess. I finally found it in this blog. There are seventy (70) posts now on Dave in the Shack, although I know the old ones rarely appear on your screen. You have to click around to find them. It was written in 2011, while I was still working, and the blog was just beginning. I didn’t know exactly what to do with a blog then; how people would find it or who would read it. So I tweaked it and moved it up to the top of the Dave in the Shack list. Hope you like it. I’m writing one more dog drama after this, about farm dogs, for something like a canine trilogy. After that I promise I’ll get off dogs and on to something else.

I talk regularly to my dog Ally. She is a black and white terrier mutt named by my kids after Ally McBeal, a TV show we watched together as a family. Ally and I have known each other for over ten years, she’s seen a lot in her relatively long dog life, but she has yet to find anything worth talking about. I don’t know why. It’s not for lack of opportunity. I often ask her questions but she doesn’t answer. I still have hope she will. She looks at me when I speak to her in a way that makes me think she understands. Then again she may simply want a dog biscuit. But when I talk she seems to know something is happening.

God knows what she thinks, or even if she thinks, about human language or anything else as we know it. But my words get her attention. When I venture outside simple one word commands and begin to fill the air around her with sounds that when combined form full sentences, one way dialogue on one subject or another, it gives her pause. I do this mostly when I’m alone with Ally. On the rare occasion I talk at any length to the dog, and my wife hears, she invariably asks who I’m talking to. I’m sure she knows but she persists in asking. When I reply that I’m talking to the dog she huffs or laughs derisively. However she reacts, her response implies goofiness, behavior that is out of bounds. She thinks I’m crazy for talking to the dog, although I catch her doing the same at times. We do it anyway.

In the beginning I said mean things to the dog with a smile, and the dog responded by looking at me with fondness, lovingly even, panting with her tongue out, cocking her head, looking extremely calm and satisfied in a doglike way. I think dogs react more to the sound level, how we look when we talk, rather than what we say. Surely back then had the dog heard what I was saying, and comprehended, she would have bit me. I said things like “How are you, you little bitch? What have you been doing? Oh wait, I know. You’ve been sleeping and licking yourself, like you do every day. You don’t know what I’m talking about do you? Of course you don’t, because you’re nothing but a dog.” I went on like that. The dog looked at me warmly and wagged her tail. She seemed to know nothing of what I’d just said. It was great fun while it lasted, but the fun wore off. Could I have wanted to insult people and instead took it out on my dog? I don’t know. Whatever it was, it didn’t last long. I turned to more enlightened conversation. I became kinder, more intellectual in my approach.

I began to muse with my dog about politics. I find it safer to talk to animals about politics than people. “What do you think of Sarah Palin?” I asked. “Do you think if she was president, and of course then commander in chief of America’s armed forces, she’d be much use in an international crisis? I really don’t think she would be. I’m afraid emergency meetings demanding strong diplomacy or military action would be especially long because the generals would have to get out lots of maps and such to explain to her what was going on where so she could act intelligently, if that’s possible. I think Sarah would slow down the pace of decision making considerably. I hate to think of her dealing with, you know Syria attacking Turkey or something, because I’m not sure she knows where those countries are. How about you? Can you even imagine? Do you worry about things like that? Or do you think I’m over reacting? Is it sexist? Am I not being fair?”

She seemed thoughtful, my dog Ally did, about the question. She plopped down and put her head on her paws pondering. She never responded in any particular way. She scratched herself vigorously at one point, but I couldn’t determine what she meant by that.

I find my dog doesn’t like to talk about sports, especially baseball. She senses trouble, but then I’m a Cubs fan. I think when I talk about my team she senses both underlying anger and pent up frustration. Her look tells me she fears something bad might happen. When I talk about Carlos Zambrano she often leaves the room.

“The guy gets mad and throws at batters Ally. Gives up a homer, his team commits an error behind him, and he goes nuts. How emotionally immature is that? How much do you have to pay the guy to keep his cool? You can’t tell me he doesn’t want to get kicked out of the game. How does he expect to stick with any team when he behaves like such a head case? I say we dump him. I don’t care how many strikeouts he gets. Team is team and he’s an asshole. You can’t keep an asshole on your team. It will kill you.” I don’t think Ally likes sports. She looks away. She seems troubled by my animated talk and I respect that. Sometimes when that happens I switch to religion.

“Here’s what I want to know Ally. What did Gomorrah ever do as a town to get such a stain on their reputation? Everything in scripture that seems to impugn Gomorrah happened in Sodom. Gomorrah didn’t get a sex act named after it. You can’t practice gomorrahy. I think Gomorrah is simply screwed by geography. It could have been an OK place, just unlucky to be located next to Sodom. It would be as if Normal was lumped in with Bloomington, or St. Paul had to pay for the sins of Minneapolis. The Bible doesn’t explain some of these things worth a damn. Have you noticed that? Where’s the evidence? That’s what I want to know.”

Ally seems bored by talk of religion and the bible. I know there is a lot to understand and that she’s a dog and all, but come to think of it why should she be interested. I have yet to find mention of a dog in the Bible. I talked to Ally about that too.

“There are famous references to pigs in the Bible, and camels. Donkeys, colts, cows, and sheep get mention. Don’t you feel slighted? They could have put a dog at the manger scene. What, dogs aren’t good enough to be in the Bible? What do you have to do for Christ’s sake to make it into the bestselling book in the world? You’ve been faithful to man for thousands and thousands of years. Biblical authors couldn’t have given dogs a few lines? It wouldn’t have hurt to have a border collie laying there by the baby Jesus when the wise men showed, do you think? Or a St. Bernard at the foot of the cross? There’s any number of places they could have written in a dog. Give me a break.”

Ally reacts little if at all when I talk about religion. But then again I look at Ally just as densely when it comes to abilities unrelated to language. Smells for example. I know her sense of smell is a lot better than mine but I forget.

One notable night she leapt off the couch like it was on fire, rushed to the door and began to bark while pawing at it. She looked back at me as if I was a deaf mute and then ran to me and barked. Sitting in front of my recliner she looked at me in a way that convinced me if she was unable to go outside, she would likely drop a load of excrement on the fake Oriental rug the likes of which I would never experience again in my life. Being no dummy I leapt up, got her leash, and before you knew it we were both out the door. To my surprise she didn’t squat to poop but immediately dove into the bushes by the house. Not finding what she thought she would she emerged with a crazed look in her eye and nearly pulled me through the hedge. She was nuts. When I held her, then pulled her back, she looked back at me as if to say “What’s wrong with you? Can’t you smell that?” Whatever was going on in her sensory world wasn’t occurring in mine. She may well have pitied my inferior nose just as I regret her lack of sophisticated vocal cords. The next morning we found a dead fawn in our yard, obviously the victim of a coyote. It all went straight over my head, or past my nose more accurately. Not Ally’s.

I wanted to teach Ally English in the worst way. If she only had language skills, I thought, she would be complete. I considered where best to start.

“Ally,” I said, “you might know the verbs, or think you know the verbs, because you can describe the action. You might think you know jump, run, and bark. I know for a fact you know sit. But you’re nowhere without knowledge of the helping verbs. And they’re easy. Is, are, was, were, has, have and had. You can memorize them in minutes. Is, are, was, were...” she looked at me with what I thought was keen interest, “has, have, and had. But you can’t bark that can you? Your tongue and palate just aren’t suited to make those noises. What if you could think it? Not say it but think it. What if everything I said registered, and you imagined a response, but you could only try in vain to communicate it through your eyes and your body language. What if, without the ability to speak, you had actual knowledge of English in your canine brain all along? What about that Ally?”

She looked at me as directly, as intently, as closely as I think she ever had. I’m not sure if she somehow knew what I was saying, if she longed to choose and conjugate verbs or whether she longed, hope against hope, that there was a piece of bacon somewhere in her future. But she looked at me warmly, and I think if she could have talked to me she would have. More than that, I think if Ally could talk she would agree with me. I sense this. It came to me like a vision that Ally was, at that very moment, about to nod in agreement and say

“You know Dave, you’re absolutely right. Palin can’t handle it. I think that’s why she’s staying out of the presidential race. Deep down she knows, just like you, that she would be over her head.”

“Also, I feel exactly the same as you about Zambrano. He is an idiot. They should have dumped him last year.”

“And Gomorrah? Guilt by association. But you’re wrong about the Bible. We’re just as happy, us dogs, that we’re not in the Bible. You can’t win. Who knows how Christians over the years might twist our reputation based on some screwy literal interpretation of dog related scripture? There’s too much controversy these days about anything in the Bible. We’re perfectly happy to be left out of that one. However since you brought it up there are other books we’re not happy about, and movies. Old Yeller for one, and All Dogs Go to Heaven for that matter. But what can you do, you know?”

If Ally could talk we would take walks together and she would thank me for introducing her to helping verbs, expanding her vocabulary, and teaching her English in general. She would tell me about being a puppy, relate stories of where she came from, talk about her Mom and Dad and her littermates. We would recall together the day we took her from the shelter and how that day changed both our lives. She would explain how her life hit rock bottom when she ended up in the shelter, alone, only to be rescued by us. She would thank us profusely.

We would talk about the kids and how much we both miss them now that they’ve moved away. It would be a wonderful day, just me and my dog, sharing observations on a life lived together, finding common ground and sparking each others’ interest in ideas that pass through our brains; one canine, the other human. Variety. It’s the best part of being different