By Louise Mathews
A recent Facebook post tells that on the sixth day, God created animals, then walked the earth and named all of them. As He walked, He was accompanied by a small, furry beast that stayed close to His heels. Having named all the animals, God started to rest. The small mammal timidly asked, “Lord, what name do you have for me?” God answered, “I have saved the best for last. I am giving you my name spelled backwards: D – O – G.”
In the Aristotelian order of beings and things, dogs do not reside just below the Creator. Angels do, then man, then dogs someplace in the vast kingdom of animalia, then plants, soil, and rocks. Some of us dog lovers would dispute that, as we have known dogs who may have been angels in disguise.
Including our current dog, Daisy, I have had eight dogs living with me and my family. With the exception of the first one who was a pure English setter puppy, all of my dogs have been mongrels. My dogs have been giveaways, pound puppies, or strays that stayed.
At age 7, my father brought home the setter, Spotty. My mother always said she was toilet-training brother Tom and the pup at the same time. One of them had to go. I voted for Tom, but my voice didn’t count. When Spotty went off to her new home, I sat on the living room sofa and cried for a very long time. Losing Spotty introduced me to grief, a tough but necessary lesson.
My dogs have worked hard to teach me tolerance and patience. Perhaps they were trying to prepare me for mothering a human child. When another brother and his wife visited with their baby daughter and changed her exceptionally dirty diaper shortly after arrival, my usually well-behaved Noggs decided this was a cue to unleash his sphincter at the other end of the room. His notion of solidarity, while eliciting loud expressions of disgust, equipped me for an extensive variety of future dog and child messes.
The enthusiasm with which my dogs have greeted every new day has been a lifelong example of gratitude and joy. This is magnified on daily walks, vacations, and particularly visits to the beach. As the leash has come out, they have exuded anticipation and wild energy. During our Morehead City years, we often walked at Atlantic Beach, where, in winter, dogs could run off restraint. How exuberant Inkee was when he could dash and charge the breakers. One Christmas afternoon as we took a beach hike, Inkee ran off and found himself a several-days old pelican carcass in which to roll. That was a memorable ride home.`
Perhaps because dogs love stuff humans find repulsive, I have vivid memories of those events. I have sunny memories, too. A basset hound/lab mix, Inkee, the Best Dog in the World, had the most cheerful disposition of any dog I have known. Having enjoyed a dog circus, our daughter decided Inkee would learn tricks. He spent hours jumping through hoops, standing on stools, and turning in circles. He also tolerated being dressed up. Inkee loved everyone, even the neighborhood kids who harnessed him to a skateboard and drove him up and down the street.
All of my dogs have taught me about unconditional love. They are better at it than humans. During divorce, death of parents, estrangements of family members, they have tried to meld their bodies to mine as if to take on my sadness. Upon returning from any journey, even trips to the store, they have greeted me as if I have been gone for months. The slightest attention makes them smile.
Like Spotty, my dogs have taught me how to live with grief. Humans live longer than dogs, so inevitably, we lose them to accidents (Smike), cancer (Noggs and Inkee), old age (Nickie, CareBear) and poison (Bootie — a beagle mix who roamed the countryside and probably ate a hot dog laced with strychnine). I grieved each one, then inevitably, shoved the sadness into the well of sorrow that never entirely dries up, and moved on with living. When I think of them now, I smile at the memories, even the stinky ones.
Our current dog, Daisy, is a half-basset/pit bull/bird dog mix. She has never met a culvert she doesn’t like. Daisy has the strongest prey instinct of any pooch we’ve had. Her kill ratio of moles is one out of two holes dug. Her core belief is that all humans were put on earth to pet her. I have thought about adopting another dog, but I have reached the conclusion that Daisy is too much of a narcissist and would not share her humans.
She is my last dog. We have reached an age at which we really want to outlive this girl. I could not bear her having to go to a shelter in her old age.
The last time I retrieved Daisy upon returning from an out-of-town trip, the kennel was boarding several dogs from the county shelter because it was overcrowded. My heart hurt for those sad creatures, all of whom looked to be mutts with a splash of pit bull in them.
I believe that unless your animal is a candidate for the Westminster Dog Show, get it spayed or neutered. If you think fixing your dog is too expensive, do not get a dog. When you consider 10 to 15 years of dog food, sterilization is the least of the cost. Most shelters will include at least part of the neutering fee in the adoption price.
They are worth every penny. My dogs have never cared where I went to church, what jobs I had, what car I drove, how I voted, with whom I socialized. They never cared whether we are at war or who the President is. As long as they had food in their bowls at supper time, water when they wanted it, a designated comfortable spot for sleeping, and at least one cuddling session each day, they were content.
Several years ago in a Sunday sermon, my pastor said that dogs and other animals do not go to heaven. I know that is the theology passed down for millennia. I believe, though, that if dogs don’t go to heaven, it can’t be heaven.
Louise Mathews retired from a career in community colleges and before that, theater. A 13-year come-here in Beaufort, she has been a dingbatter in North Carolina and an upstater from New York.