In the Dog Park - Pets and People

For an hour on Thursday mornings the local high school makes one of its playing fields available for all kinds of dogs, large and small, to race around in, fraternizing and exercising as they go. There are usually some 50 or more dog owners in the field, and although my main interest is in the incredible range of dog personalities and behaviors, I find that the individual owners also cannot help but interest one as personalities. Some keep an eye on their animals, others are much more interested in conversing with other owners even though their dogs may be engaged in a tussle at the other end of the field. Even though real fights between dogs are rare, there are always some encounters to assert supremacy that seem to be on the verge of all-out fights. My old dog (age unknown but probably between 10 and 11), a Collie/Shepherd/Huskie mix, is a true loner. He’s friendly enough for the first minute with his tail giving a brief acknowledging wag, and then he is off with his nose to the ground picking up the trail of a myriad of fascinating smells. Gabriel never fights. A low, menacing growl seems to be sufficient warning to a would-be aggressor.

Over the years I have come to be aware how like myself in temperament Gabriel has become. Or is it how like him I have become? I once used to think that size had something to do with this, i.e., the bigger the dog the greater the affinity with its owner was likely to be, but this is obviously not the case. There are many small dogs here and the degree of smallness has obviously nothing to do with the degree of caring for their owners and vice versa. Neither does it seem to matter if the owner is man or woman. A lady I speak to from time to time whose dog was the smallest I have ever seen, only some four inches high and about one foot long, would become threateningly aggressive to either man or dog if she perceived either as likely to do harm to her diminutive pet.

Nowadays, as I observe Gabriel, my dog, slowing up physically and slightly mentally, I already find myself wondering how I am going to cope with his absence.

A year or so ago now, the fossilized remains of a man and his dog were found in the Italian Alps on what was once a steep glacier giving access from the coastal Mediterranean plain to the higher fertile regions. Next to his skeleton was that of his dog. The remains carbon dated at around 9000 B.C. I could not help wondering who died first. Who stayed with the 'dying other' all those many years ago? Can there be any doubt?

The other day I came across a few lines by the 19th century writer Edgar Allan Poe which sums up this mysterious age-old link between man and dog: ‘There is something about the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere man.’

I have many neighbors who I hope will shuffle off this mortal coil before it is my dog’s turn to succumb.