When People Talk About Dogs, They Reveal Themselves

(Photo above by Matt North)

Although many people refer to their dogs as their "fur children," in canine-focused novels, dogs serve a very different sort of role in their masters' lives. A far cry from needy dependents, these fictional dogs tend to worry endlessly over "their humans," wondering if they're eating or sleeping enough, or fretting that they may never find the right partner. Most dog protagonists tend to serve as a mix of psychotherapist and adoring mother to their masters. Whether they must run through heavy traffic, tolerate a pill problem or endure the misanthropic dachshunds of their master's friends, these loyal dogs are willing to do it.

Where does one find such a noble canine? My dogs Potus and Bean are nothing at all like Enzo, the dog narrator of Garth Stein's "The Art of Racing in The Rain." Like the mother/stalker of every man's dreams, Enzo not only develops an obsessive interest in car racing to match that of his owner, Denny, but he protectively rips up a bad legal contract before Denny can sign it, then lets loose his bowels on the floor of Denny's malevolent in-laws. While anyone else would surely tire of Denny's obvious self-involvement and shortsightedness, Enzo dotes nonstop. "I know everything about him," he gushes of his master, "and yet he always surprises me." Enzo is even prepared to go gentle into that good night, if it might make life more convenient for his one true love. "He needs to not have me around to worry about anymore," offers Enzo. "He needs me to free him to be brilliant."

If my dogs can't quite manage such fawning, they could at least try to be more like Mr. Bones, the stray-dog hero of Paul Auster's "Timbuktu." Instead of stigmatizing his homeless master, Willy, Mr. Bones sees him as a valiant adventurer, a "rough-and-ready soldier of fortune," and refers to his poems are masterpieces. It's unnerving, really, to consider how much more supportive of my writing career my dogs might be, if only I were wandering the streets every day, sifting through trash cans for my next meal. "Could a dog ask for more than that?" Auster writes of Willy's nomadic lifestyle. "As far as Mr. Bones was concerned, he was the luckiest creature on the face of the earth."

Even the somewhat skeptical dog narrator of Andrew O'Hagan's latest novel adores his famous owner. In "The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog and of His Friend, Marilyn Monroe," we discover a devoted Maltese who views the distracted and woozy Monroe as a combination of temperamental sweetheart and muse. "She formed everything about me, including my sense of the novel," Maf explains. "Even in anger, she looked at me and I understood the storyteller's vocation." (Maf, like so many of Monroe's paramours, is something of an intellectual.)

Who would guess that dogs were quite so invested in our happiness? These dog novels suggest that people adopt dogs not because they want something to care for, but because they long to be cared for themselves. Are dog lovers just people who didn't get enough nurturing from their parents? Or maybe we're just immature: we share a desire to shirk the demands of adult life, to assume the fetal position and let Fido pace and kvetch over us instead.

I can't imagine my Samoyed mix Potus doing that. Potus is over-sensitive and aloof, judgmental and emotionally reactive. Instead of reassuring me, Potus is pretty sure I'm the cause of all her woes. When one of my kids is crying, Potus flashes me a look that says, "What did you do this time?" If my husband and I bicker, Potus sits next to him, facing me, and licks my hand urgently as if to say, "Leave the nice man alone, you bad woman."

But then, why wouldn't she hate me? I'm the reason she's not eating stinky things off the pavement right now, like those lucky strays wandering the streets of Tijuana. That's "living your best life," as far as my dogs are concerned. Instead, they're stuck at home, listening to my kids screech and scamper and scream at each other.

Or maybe I'm projecting. In fact, it could be that the way people describe their dogs is a direct reflection of the way they view themselves.

According to this theory, I must suspect that my dogs dislike me because deep down inside... I dislike myself? So far, so good.

(Photo by Roman Soto)

Let's see, though. My husband addresses our dogs as "Dummies," as in "You stupid dummy!" and "Stop that, knucklehead!" He is bothered the most by our dogs' moments of unrestrained anger, when they throw themselves at the front window to scare the UPS man, for example. "Stop it! Stop being such assholes!" my husband bellows at them. To my husband, our dogs are smelly, vulgar beasts with one-track minds. Hmm.

On the other hand, my mother's dog, a Jack Russell named Chloe, really struggled with her anger issues. To hear my mother tell it, Chloe was suspicious of white dogs, didn't much like black dogs, and truly loathed yellow dogs who were bigger than her (i.e. all of them). But most of all, Chloe hated other Jack Russells. "She just wants to kill that dog," my mom would say of one particular Jack Russell they saw in the neighborhood a lot. Chloe was incredibly smart -- "too smart for her own good" according to my mom. (That sounds familiar, somehow.) The command "Get Binky bear!" would send Chloe out of the room, only to return with a furry bear-shaped hoodie – the remains of her "friend" Binky, shredded and sewn back together countless times. You see, Chloe was overwhelmed by feelings of rage, and she had to sublimate her murderous urges by shredding up her "friends" instead. ("I see," said the therapist, scribbling frantically in his pad.)

And then there's my four-year-old daughter, who, when she was two, would look at Potus moping on the floor and ask, "She want her mommy?"

(By Michael Gil)

Once you start viewing dog people and dog culture through this lens, it's pretty hard to stop. If dogs are mirrors of the soul, then dog rescue websites, with their descriptions of adoptable dogs, offer a particularly vivid snapshot of the human condition:

"Our Bess is an old-fashioned girl. She values family and follows the golden rule. As any lady, Bess does have her limits with dogs without manners." Aw, poor old-fashioned Bess, so out of step with the times!

Brando "has learned to trust and have fun" and now he's "the life of the party" but he's still "a little insecure." (I think I dated Brando for a while in the late '90s.)

Bugs is a little touchy around other males, but "any guy is going to react to negative energy. A nice girly friend would be lovely." (Watch out, ladies. He sounds like trouble.)

And why do so many of these dogs sound like my ideal neurotic soulmate? Brutus: "People with weak energy make him nervous." Me, too! "An insecure dog can be a very defensive dog." Don't I know it? "He just needs to feel safe and relax and be a dog and nothing more." God, can I relate to that.

Buttercup "is a feisty girl and not all dogs like how she plays but all it takes is one." That would make a good ad on Match.com, one that would definitely appeal to Cole: "This guy is young, strong and ready to rock 'n' roll. Underneath the punk rock exterior is a sweet boy that wants to belong." Maybe behind every dog there's a sweet human who wants to belong. (Or, in my case, a messy, impatient human being who wants to belong.)

If all of this projection rings true, then America's irrational love of dogs could be a reflection of our irrational love for – you guessed it – ourselves. Dogs are more than just companions or guardians or muses, in other words. Loving your dog is tantamount to loving yourself -- which Whitney Houston (herself a dog lover) was happy to remind us was the greatest love of all.

Maf the dog put it in different terms: "I loved the idea of being owned because, for a dog, ownership sets you free." We are owned by our dogs, and therefore owned by ourselves. We are dog-obsessed, and therefore self-obsessed. It feels good, sure. But it definitely doesn't feel like freedom.

(Photo by Gina Liguori)