About two weeks after Billy the puppy came to live with our family at Christmas, I got an odd note from a friend. I’d emailed her a photograph of our fluffy new housemate, and she’d sent back a single sentence: “Oh, you’re going to love him so much.”
Well, sure, I thought to myself, puzzled. We’ve had the animal for a fortnight. We already love him. What’s with the future tense?
A scant few weeks on, I now understand not only what my friend meant, but also what underpinned the anger of some Examiner readers, who thought that we ought to have adopted a shelter dog rather than buy a puppy.
Our family has indeed come to be very fond of the dog. What none of us anticipated, however, was quite how immensely we would love him, and how tender and protective we would feel about him. When I come home after running errands my heart actually jumps with happiness at the prospect of seeing his little doggy face again. Who knew?
I certainly didn’t. I expected to feel affection tinged with occasional irritation at the impositions the animal would make on me. Instead, in the ensuing weeks I have been swept with love. It is only with the fiercest effort that I resist the temptation to speak to him in anthropomorphic goo-goo baby talk; honestly, it’s that bad!
All this is not to claim that Billy is a model dog (yet): He’s full of bounce and teeth and has not yet quite absorbed the twin lessons that barking is unproductive and the fingers of the youngest family member are not hors d’oeuvres.
Yet civilization will surely come in time: We’ve discovered that with the patient application of Cheerios, the puppy is willing learn whatever we want him to know. Operating under the advice of an obedience trainer, who warns that it can take a month and a half for a dog to really absorb a lesson, we dispense Cheerios in short, focused training periods throughout the day.
It used to be that if you came into our kitchen, you’d hear the radio news chatting away. Now we’ve switched almost entirely to classical (dogs prefer it to C-SPAN), and along with the music there’s usually the quiet rhythm of instruction: “Sit. Thank you.” (Pause for Cheerio delivery) “Sit. Thank you.” (Cheerio) or “Down. Good boy.” (Cheerio) “Down. Good boy.” (Cheerio), ad infinitum but not, apparently, ad nauseum. Judging from Billy’s behavior, Cheerios possess inexhaustible deliciousness.
So it’s all very lovely and heartwarming — but also humbling. For now I see why shelter animal advocates are so passionate about their cause. Before Billy came to live with us, I thought dogs were just dogs — nice enough companions but a logistical pain. That some dogs languish in institutions seemed a shame, but only in an abstract way.
Now I begin to see more clearly our responsibility to these creatures, dependent as they are, affectionate as they long to be, and utterly poignant in their willingness to oblige us for payment as trivial as a Cheerio.
Meghan Cox Gurdon’s column appears on Sunday and Thursday. She can be contacted at [email protected].
