In Session (10)
The Lay Psychiatrist analyzes an overly solicitous Pekingese
I am disturbed. It’s not just the black dog which followed me from my house to the office. I could kill him and eat him if I thought it would lift this depression. I recall looking into a butcher shop in Bangkok and wondering, “What animals are those?” They were dogs. When I think of how friendly and ingratiating most dogs are, how loyal and faithful and protective, I know that’s one side of the coin. There’s always a shadow side.
Some dogs take things too far
Last week Marlow Hyde brought his dog, Buster, for a session. I have to keep the lights on, so I’ve expanded the practice to pet psychiatry. I am up front about being a layman, but I’ve read most of the self help books ever published. I’m on the road less traveled and I know the sound of one hand clapping. It’s a kind of whooshing noise if you record it and jack up the volume. I do my own research into these things.
Hyde was in his early forties, balding in the usual manner, with the thinning in front and the crop circle on top. His head was shaped like an egg, with thin lips and a high, intellectual brow. He wore a plaid sport coat in a tastefully patterned, finely woven wool. He was wearing Ferragamo shoes, so he had enough money to get any kind of dog he wanted, and one with proper papers. He’d gotten stuck with Buster when he agreed to take him for a week for a friend whose private plane subsequently crashed, which meant Hyde was obliged to find a home for Buster. So far nobody wanted him because of the creepy factor.
“You see the problem,” he said. He’d taken one of the red leather chairs and Buster was sitting at attention at his left side. He was a small dog with tight curly silver hair and a sage’s beard. His eyes were black as bottomless pools, with light dancing across them from electrical charge being generated by the brain. “He anticipates … something … every moment. If he sleeps he comes awake before I see him and he’s like this, waiting to be commanded.”
I had tried to pet Buster a little when he came in but he ignored it, like I was mashing on him and it made him nervous. “I wish I had some treats here,” I said.
“He likes treats,” Hyde said. “But if you give him one he won’t eat it until I tell him to, just stands there staring at me, waiting for the command. Sometimes I wake up at night and he’s standing at the foot of the bed with that same expectant look, focused on me.
“At first I thought he was just well trained, but it’s beyond that. He’s addicted to perfection.”
“He’s causing trouble all over town,” I said. “We’re trying to counterbalance him and we can’t do it. He’s trying to be a good dog, but it’s like evil being goodness carried too far, he’s sucking the oxygen out of the room. I myself am having trouble breathing because my body is unconsciously conforming to that of a dog so good he’s annoying, to put it mildly, and to put it more plainly, I think this dog is fucking crazy.”
Buster didn’t move. He sat bolt upright, never taking his eyes off Hyde. “He’s waiting for me to give him a command,” Hyde said. To the dog he said, “play dead,” and Buster dropped like a sack of rice and pretended to be dead. Except for the left eye. It remained open and fixed on Hyde. “There,” he said, “you see how he focuses on me even when he’s playing dead? The eyes are the exposed part of the brain, and his brain is focused on me all the goddamned time.”
“Do you like Thai food?” I asked.
