On Buddies, Dogs and Humans

by Penny Costello

I’ve taken the past couple of months off from feeding the 5 Women Mayhem pipeline. This wasn’t a planned hiatus, or intentional in any way. I wasn’t suffering from classic writer’s block. I just didn’t feel like I had anything to say. The well was dry, awaiting recharge.

After a year of COVID, campaigns, and rancorous commentary on all sides, I hit my limit. Enough of the pundits, politicians, and proselytizers speaking in pompous certainty that their viewpoints, ideologies and dogma hold the keys to sanity and salvation, if only the idiots who see things differently would somehow see the light. I was tired of the noise, and didn’t feel I had anything clarifying, inspiring or redemptive to add.

Don’t get me wrong. I am a firm believer in the productive roles that dissent and spirited discourse contribute to a healthy democracy. But those ideals have been reduced to dyssent and dyscourse, (“dys” defined as a combining form meaning “ill,” “bad,” used in the formation of compound words like ‘dysfunction’). I say this because it seems to me that most of us have stopped listening, and thinking about what we've heard. We react rather than respond. We post snappy, snarky retorts in social media comments and wrap ourselves in smug self-satisfaction.

Too many of us have made up our minds, and there’s no need to think about it further. It’s their problem, not ours if they don’t like it. When we label each other as radicals (liberals AND conservatives), socialists, racists, and so many other ‘ists’, we don’t see each other as Americans, or even as Humans anymore.

Down that road lies madness, divisiveness, derision, misery, and ultimately, hatred.

I spend a lot of my time with dogs. My dogs, friends’ dogs, family members’ dogs. I have a chance to really observe the ways they interact with each other within our familiar sphere at home and out in the more public sphere at local dog parks. Like people, various dog breeds have personality traits that are predictable based on their lineage, culture, and upbringing. And, also like people, there are traits or behaviors that are situational, or have been established by training, past experiences or trauma.

Boone

When we do get together with friends and their dogs for play dates and romps, these are called Good Dog Club meetings. And the first and foremost rule for all members of the Good Dog Club is, “Be a Buddy, Not a Butthead.”

One recent day in particular, I was at the dog park with my pack. Boone, my Lab/Heeler mix can be protective if he sees the need, but mostly he plays the peacemaker. 

Idgy, a sweet Chihuahua/Pug/Jack Russell Terrier mix is small but mighty, she can totally run with the big dogs, and one of her nicknames is Mildred Fierce. And Simon, my “granddog” is a sweet and spunky Bichon Frise/Vizsla mix.

Idgy

Idgy weighs about 12 pounds, and sometimes when a bigger dog runs up to her, she’ll snarl a bit, establish her boundary, and then move on. Simon also gets uneasy when bigger dogs run up to him, and he’s been known to growl or snap a bit at them. His response seems to be one of those based on some negative experience. I don’t know what happened for him, but he became more reactive around age five. Now he has a particular dislike for Chocolate Labs and Huskies. He doesn’t take the time to get to know them. He just doesn’t like them. 

Simon

Could breedism be the canine counterpart to racism? Or, perhaps, since so many of us have been at home full time with our dogs for a year due to COVID, have they grown more possessive or protective of us (xenophobic)?

Usually, I can see these potential snarl encounters coming and divert their attention or disperse the tension and all is well. On this particular day, however, Idgy and Simon would team up, present a united, snarly front to pretty much every dog who came into our path. I tried at first to keep it positive and light.

“Come on, Pups,” I’d say. “It’s alright. Be a buddy. Come on. We’re good.” But it happened several times and they were not getting the ‘buddy not a butthead’ message. I finally had enough. I called them to me in a not-so-happy tone. I put them both on their leashes. And, I’ll admit, I yelled at them.

“Now SIT!” I scolded. “What in the hell is going on with you two? THIS IS NOT WHO WE ARE!”

Idgy and Simon sat looking up at me, waiting for the next command with that ‘Wow she’s serious!’ look on their faces. And I began to notice a few other dog owners nearby looking at me, too. So, we walked on for a bit, Boone making friends along the way, Idgy and Simon walking obediently beside me on their leashes. After we walked through a couple of groups of people and dogs, me talking to them and praising them for being buddies, I let them run again. When we encountered other dogs after that, I encouraged them as we approached. They were exemplary buddies from that point on, and we had a lovely time.

After that day, I began to reflect on those similarities between people in society and dogs at the dog park. I’ve since had some amusing fantasies about putting leashes on certain governors, senators and congressional representatives on both sides of the aisle and making them SIT!

How wonderful it would be to be able to say to them, “This is NOT who we are! Need I remind you of the first rule of the Good American Club?”

It works as well for humans as it does for dogs, Folks. And it has a snappy acronym – BABNAB. Be a buddy. No one can have too many.

 

 

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