This is a story about my dog Didi. I was afraid it might become another cute dog story, but, as it turned out, it is not cute at all. This is probably a good thing since, as a writer, I don’t do ‘cute’ well. The beginning of the story is quite true and the rest of it I’m not entirely sure about.
Almost nine years ago there was a pitiful little dog living in front of the Comercial Mexicana. She lived on scraps from the tables and drank from the fountain in front of the store. I had watched her for almost a month. She was there every day. She seemed near death. You could count the vertebrae in her tail. She had no hair on her belly. Her ears were hairless and looked like black leather. I called her Dolores because she seemed so sorrowful. For purposes of brevity and training we now usually call her Didi.
I began to form an attachment to this poor dog a week or so after I first saw her, and it grew as the weeks passed. I finally decided to pick her up. It was not a convenient time, as Linn and I were about to leave town for two weeks, but I decided she might be dead when I came back and that would have been very hard on me emotionally as I felt increasingly close to her.
I took a length of rope with me to use as a lead, bought some cookies to use as an inducement, and left Linn parked in the motor home some distance away with the motor running. I tried to get the poor dog to come with the cookies, but she was wary. She would only come and eat them when I stepped way back. I tried to approach her, but she was very elusive.
By this time I had attracted an audience of women waiting with their shopping bags, who must have been thinking, “What is this crazy gringo trying to do?” Finally, I got frustrated and formed the rope into a lasso, twirled it around my head a few times, and roped her. She immediately let out a piercing, high-pitched scream. Women with their shopping bags scattered in all directions, but I felt victory. I reeled her in, still screaming, and picked her up. She smelled like she was already dead.
I tried to lead her away, but she wouldn’t walk, so I carried her back to the motor home. We took her directly to the vet and boarded her there for two weeks while we were away so she could be treated. We were not sure she would survive.
As it turned out she did, and over the years developed a beautiful brindled coat of black and brown, and a delightful personality. She is very bright and generally well behaved.
The behavior that I want to talk about began very recently. My beloved dog and I had often gazed at each other across an invisible gulf, apparently both wishing we could communicate more directly. She seemed to have important things to say, and I wished I could express myself to her better. I thought it would be wonderful if she could talk.
What happened next has been somewhat obscure in my mind. I clearly remember that I had a dream. This was not unusual since I generally have vivid and strange dreams. But this dream seemed to merge with reality seamlessly. I don’t remember how it started or ended, but it turned out to involve an often-aggressive verbal interchange between me and my dog.
I was saying to her, “You bat-faced dingo dog!” I often called her this since her face resembles that of a large fruit bat and she has often been mistaken for a dingo.
She responded, “You flat-nosed pale-faced bi-ped!”
I said, “I had hoped when you learned to talk that we would have interesting and meaningful interchanges, and here we are calling each other names. I thought that when we went for walks we would share intellectual observations.”
“Harumph!” she said. I didn’t know a dog could say harrumph. “I suppose you think that jerking me around by the neck is spending quality time together? Oh, what great fun! Furthermore, the tenor of our conversations is your own fault,” she said, “You taught me to talk, but you didn’t properly educate me.”
“Education is largely the responsibility of the individual,” I retorted. “Life experience and reading are very important.”
“Well, of course, I can read,” she said. “But there is one little problem that you may have overlooked in your compulsive anthropomorphism.” She held up her paw and said, “Look, do you, in your human wisdom, notice anything missing here? How about an opposable thumb? How am I supposed to turn pages?”
She had me there, so I attempted to change direction. “Let’s talk politics,” I said.
“I don’t think I want to talk politics with you.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“You may not have realized that for years I have been listening in on your various conversations.”
“Oh, and what did you learn from this?” I asked.
She gave me a kind of predatory look and said, “I think that much of the time your right brain manufactures bullshit, and your left brain buys it.”
I had no response.
“OK, politics,” she said. “How about reproductive rights? Last week in your newspaper the page happened to be open to an article on the International Day of the Woman. It was discussing reproductive rights. I seem to remember some years ago when you took me to the vet. I was examined, then I went to sleep, then, presto-chango, when I woke up no more biological imperative for me. Where was the legal document with a little square for my paw print that indicated my agreement to this procedure? There wasn’t any! I think this was a blatant infringement of my reproductive rights and of myself as a female.”
I felt pretty defensive and said, “Let’s talk about something else.”
“You liberals make me sick. As soon as someone points out a flaw in your point of view, you try to change the subject.”
I seriously wondered where this concept of teaching a dog to talk ever came from. Let’s face it, she was grinding me down. I was about worn out.
Not willing to let me off the hook she said, “OK then, let’s talk about religion.”
“That subject is fraught with perils.” I said, “Most people avoid it.”
“Well, for humans that is true, but for dogs it’s much simpler.”
“How so?” I asked.
“Dogs only have one God. The DOG GOD is infinitely wise. He even gave himself a name that is a palindrome so that whatever direction your come at him from he is still DOG GOD. Forward it’s DOG GOD and backwards it’s DOG GOD.”
“How clever of him,” I said. “What does DOG GOD mean to you?”
“Well, I pray, and I get an answer.”
“What do you pray about?”
“I pray about the cat. I pray about you. I pray about fleas and ticks.”
“What kind of responses do you get?”
“DOG GOD is infinitely wise so there are not answers. There is only one answer.”
“You mean there is only one answer to all prayers?”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
“He always says, ‘Get a life’.”
“Wow! That is wise.”
Finally, I thought, we were getting into some interesting stuff, but I was emotionally exhausted. I said, “Can’t we come to some kind of negotiated settlement about our differences? I’m tired of all this arguing.”
Didi thought for a moment and said, “Sure, there are two issues I would like to put on the table: Number one, no more ground meat by-products with my kibble in the evening. I would prefer fresh chicken pieces and kibble, preferably at body temperature. Number two, the cat has to go.
I thought this was a reasonable starting point for negotiation. I considered a moment, then said, “I accept your first condition, but the cat stays. Make your peace with the cat.”
Didi looked up at me with that benevolent stare I had almost forgotten. She sat and held out her paw and said, “Shake.”
