When I heard about Tiger Woods infidelity I immediately wondered if he had a dog. After all, Fido is derived from the same Latin root as the word fidelity. In my experience owning a dog has a stabilizing influence on most human beings; a man who owns a dog is less likely to stray from home.
In her wonderful book, Bandit, Vicki Hearne quotes the late Ralph Greenwood, a dog breeder and trainer from Salt Lake City. "Here's what a dog man is. You don't find him in bars, because he's got to get home from work to take care of his beauties. And you don't find a real dog man lying or cheating, either, because he has to live up to his dogs." (Harper Collins, 1991.)
But then I realized it wouldn't matter if Woods had one dog or a whole kennel full. (He apparently has two dogs.) A professional golfer who travels the world competing in tournaments and appearing on TV doesn't have to get home from work to walk the dog the way the rest of us do; he's got someone to do that for him, either his wife or someone on his household staff. (The same was true of JFK, another famous philanderer and dog owner.)
David Letterman, meanwhile, doesn't have a large staff, or a peripatetic lifestyle, but then he doesn't have a dog either. But a few weeks after Dave admitted on national television that he'd been unfaithful to his longtime companion Regina Lasko, his son Harry found and "adopted" a dog. The dog's rightful owner was located a few days later, but during the time Letterman's family almost had a dog, it seemed to me that maybe Harry was trying to tell his daddy something.
There's a flip side to this, of course, which is that men who chase women are often referred to as dogs, or hounds; no male dog was ever faithful to a female, especially not if there was another bitch in heat available nearby. (Wolves, on the other hand, tend to be very monogamous.) Still, dogs are faithful to us, if not to their "sexual partners."
Most parents, when their kids are pleading with them to get a dog, will say, "If we do get a dog it'll be your responsibility to take care of him. You'll have to feed him and walk him and make sure he gets enough exercise." The more removed from those kinds of daily responsibilities we are, even as adults, the less a dog's innate stabilizing influence has on our lives.
So when all the fallout from this media frenzy is over, and Tiger and Elin (hopefully) work things out, it might also be wise for Elin to tell her husband, "Those dogs are now your responsibility. You have to walk them and feed them and take care of them."
The more time he spends with those dogs, the less of a dog he'll be.
And next time, try not to run over their mail box, i.e., the fire hydrant.
LCK
www.LeeCharlesKelley.com
"Changing the World, One Dog at a Time"
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UPDATE: It turns out that TIger's problem was much serious than we first thought. That doesn't negate the power of dogs to help create increased stability in human social dynamics. It just means that, like with MIchael Vick's dogs, Tiger's two canine companions did they best they could with the situation they were given. And I still think that besides seeking professional counseling, Tiger needs to spend more time with his dogs. Dogs are designed to help us become better human beings. But we have to spend time with them, and allow them to do their magic.
