THIS IS US
Want to Know Thyself? Get Thee a Dog
But only if you want to live without regret
My son said, “I’m ready for a dog.”
“Okay,” I said. “You ready to feed it?”
“Yes.”
“Walk it every day?”
“Yes.”
“Pick up its poo?”
“Yes.”
“Maybe you didn’t hear me. If we get a dog, you’ll have to pick up tons of poo. By that I mean crap. Excrement. Stool. You know the fake poop we have, used arguably too much for making dinner guests think one of us crapped in their shoe?”
“I’m familiar.”
“Well, dog crap isn’t like that crap. It isn’t rubbery and solid and pleasing to the nose and good for pranks.”
“But real poo is good for pranks.”
“You’re not wrong.” But I wouldn’t be thrown off course. “Listen, the real thing is soft and warm. Nay, hot. And the plastic bag provides zero sensory protection for your hand against the softness and the hotness. And a dog craps every day. Forty to fifty times a day.”
“What?” said my son.
“Stop,” said my wife. “A dog doesn’t poop fifty times a day. If it did that, it would be dead.”
“That’s another thing,” I said. “Dogs die. You ready for your most wonderful best friend in the whole world to just die without permission and leave you alone forever and ever?”
“Everything dies,” said my nihilistic son. “Can I have a dog?”
And I, finding it impossible to overthrow his philosophy of nothingness and nonexistence, said, “If we must.”
“We must.”
Her name is Blossom.
She’s a middleweight pit bull mix. All black but for a heart-shaped patch of white on her chest, and she has one white paw, which she uses all the time to touch your hard heart.
As soon as she touched mine, my chest crapped me a new heart, soft and warm.
Immediately, I invented many names for Blossom. Why? Because I loved her immediately and words are imperfect. No single name can capture all a person is, and the more they are, the more names they require.
She is Blosso and La-Loe and Wiggle-Diggle and Clock Dog, for she knows time better than clocks. I call her Boo-Loo and Sloop and Ma-la and My Love, and when the spirit moves me, I speak the secret language of dogs:
“Moo-lee caloo la boo leelay. Oon da-badock une sha de malow and a zeepzeep and a bah lay-low!”
She wiggles for this. Reaches with her paw. Leaps. She dances.
I lie on the floor and roll around laughing like a clown while she tries to kiss me on the mouth, and the cats scrutinize, shaking their heads, saying, “There is no God,” and murmuring to my wife, “Don’t worry. Dogs and husbands die all the time.”
When my son gets home from school, Blossom wiggle-diggles and dances even more.
They play video games together. Watch shows and movies, laughing and howling. He hugs her often and she reaches with her paws, hugging back.
I’ve seen her kiss the tears off his face.
“Remember when you didn’t want a dog?” my wife says.
“That man,” I say, “is dead.”
Something bites my toe. “Ouch!”
“You said you were dead,” says one of the cats. “You lie.”
A friend of mine, the same friend who helped us find and adopt Blossom, explained to me why our dog has added so much peace and happiness to our lives.
ME: I like Blossom more than I like 99% of all people.
FRIEND: You know why this is?
ME: Yes. Because 99% of all people never burn through the fog of their infantile narcissism. They all believe they’re the star of life. But if they could only stand on the bow of their psyche so the whole long cruise ship of their self-absorption was behind them, invisible, they’d be able to see the floating mountain that is me and realize the mountain they see is merely the wee summit of my beautiful existence, and worth celebrating, praising, and will destroy them with freezing and crushing darkness if ignored.
FRIEND: True.
ME: Blossom lives on the bow, watching. Her religion is the little mountain range of my family. With her around, we’re somehow more ourselves.
Then my friend explained: People and dogs evolved together over thousands of years. This is why dogs have people ways in them, and we have dog ways in us.
Through our ages and ages together, we’ve locked away within each other many deep secrets of ourselves.
Therefore, if “Know thyself” is a goal of yours,
Get thee a dog.
Blossom watches me.
I watch her.
What are we looking at, looking for?
“There’s something so familiar about you,” I say. “Have we met, maybe long ago?”
She reaches for me with her paw. We shake hands.
“Nice to meet you,” I say again, and again, for the thousandth time.
The millionth.
A greeting that began long before my birth and one that will continue long after she and I have gone to God.
Sadly, our deep connection and self knowledge are things the cats won’t get to experience and enjoy.
Not in life.
If they want profound connection, to truly know themselves, they’ll have to die, go to their ancient home, and shake hands with their father.
