You Had Me at Woof: How Dogs Taught Me the Secrets of Happiness (20 page)

By the time we headed back to the house, the sun was setting. The clouds were the colors of the inside of a peach. I held Violet’s hand and I think we both felt some peace thinking of Dahlia up there in heaven.

LESSON ELEVEN

How to Find the Right Fit

If you’re going to P. Diddy’s clambake on the North Fork of Long Island and you need to know whether a Pinot Blanc or a Riesling works better with Montauk clams, you could consult with my friend Jessica. If you want to know which toaster oven will leave the smallest carbon footprint, talk to my dad. If you’re thinking of traveling to an exotic, yet comfy, locale and need a recommendation, ask my friend Jancee. And if anybody has a dog question, they come to me. You know, like:
I have a dog and it’s sick/not housebroken/biting people. I want to get a dog, what kind? My neighbor’s dog never stops barking; can I write them an anonymous note? I found a stray dog; what do I do? Do you think the Monster of Montauk is a bulldog? Etc. . . .
I have the distinct honor of being known by friends, fans, followers, and family as the dog expert, to my face anyway. Behind my back it’s the dog nut.

For over a year, a friend of mine, Andrea, has been asking if we could get together and talk about dogs. She has three children and they desperately want a dog. She had a brief, unsuccessful adoption of a mutt from a shelter, and she doesn’t want to make another mistake. She’s essentially starting from zero, as in, she didn’t have dogs growing up, she’s not a woman who stops to pet every dog on the street, she’s really not a dog person. We make a date for Violet and me to come over. Our daughters will play Polly Pockets and we will chat canines.

Her building on Riverside Drive is one of those grand, elegant prewar buildings that you imagine Katharine Hep-burn stepping out of to hail a Checker Cab.

Past the doorman and the elevator attendant, we get to Andrea’s and she ushers us in with warmth and affection. Right away I notice the distinct lack of smells. The next thing that catches my attention is that there are no pee-soaked newspapers on her hardwood floors. It’s tidy and photogenic. I make Violet take off her boots; I take off my sneakers and we go inside.

Andrea gestures for me to come and sit on the creamy suede couch, whose legs are suspiciously without bite marks, the fabric free of tears from tiny teeth and nails. There’s an oriental rug without faded yellow stains; lovely art and sculptures sit undisturbed. Beneath the glass coffee table, there are no chewed orthotics or Dora the Explorer toys bitten in half like an extra in
Jaws
. The last detail I take in is Andrea’s pants—clean and dazzlingly white. The apartment whispers to me,
“Dogs do not live here.”

I sit carefully on the couch facing the view of the river and think about the similarities between Andrea’s and my homes. Well, we both have walls and floors and ceilings.

“So!” she says. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

“That’s fine,” I assure her. “I didn’t know anything before I got Otto. Why don’t you describe for me your ideal dog.”

The thing is, Andrea’s not really the one dreaming of the dog. Her children are, mainly her nine-year-old son.

“Well,” she says slowly, “the problem with the dog we adopted was it had very bad emotional problems, like severe separation anxiety. ... We were totally ill-equipped.”

“I understand,” I say. “I understand,” I say again. “That’s totally . . . understandable.”

We talk a little more about the dog who didn’t work out, with me understanding, and then she tries to put into words what she wants. “Not terribly needy.” Her husband travels frequently for work and her children are in different schools. Then she adds, “Not high maintenance.”

I start talking about good apartment dogs.

“I don’t want a very small dog, like a Chihuahua,” she says, wrinkling her nose. I nod. “Not too small and yappy. But not too big.” She holds her hand about three feet above the ground. “Like maybe this big?”

“Uh-huh.” I nod. I am thinking of the perfect dog. Martha. From the children’s book
Martha Speaks
.

“Not a dog who barks a lot.” She pauses and then blurts, “I don’t want to sound awful saying this, but you know how some dogs smell?” At the word “smell,” she seems to recall a very foul dog-related odor.

“Yeah,” I laugh, “I don’t think you sound awful.” I really don’t. I see how much Andrea just doesn’t really want a dog, but her kids do, and she loves them and wants them to be happy. She’s being as honest as she can be so she doesn’t end up with another situation that doesn’t work and hurts her family.

“In terms of smell, I think there are some dogs that are smellier than others,” I say, clinically. “I also think all dogs have some smell.”

Andrea looks worried.

“Though,” I say quickly, “my aunt Mattie’s basset hound, Norman, smelled like cigarettes and my aunt Phyllis’s poodle smelled like Estée Lauder’s Youth Dew.” I stop. “Poodles are great!”

“I don’t want a poodle. I don’t want a
poofy
dog,” she says.

“Well, not all poodles smell like Youth Dew and they aren’t all poofy either. It’s how people decide to cut the hair. You know, go to the groomer and ask for a Continental cut or whatever with the pom-poms?” I go into my poodle rap. “We had a standard poodle growing up. She was called Misty because she was gray. She just had evenly cut hair—well, not so even because my dad did it in our basement. ...” She wasn’t convinced. “Poodles are very smart, and they don’t shed.”

“Oh!”
she says, remembering. She shakes her head no as she says, “I can’t have a dog who sheds.”

“Boston terriers don’t shed,” I say, putting in a quick plug for the home team.

“What about French bulldogs?” she asks.

“They shed more than Bostons, and I think they tend to have more health problems. A lot of them suffer from joint diseases and spinal disorders.” I do love French bulldogs, but I think they’re a breed for a more experienced dog owner.

Being a dog person is not something you can force. Sometimes I watch people who want to be seen as dog people, but they really aren’t. They pet and scratch a dog with a manic intensity. “Here’s the spot!” they say as the dog seizes up, twitching, looking more bothered than anything, like it might succumb to shaken dog syndrome. After they’ve made sure everyone has seen them petting the dog, they sneak off to bathe in Purell.

 

 

 

 

WE SPEAK FURTHER AND I
suggest that Andrea look at dogs when she’s walking around and if she sees one she likes, find out what it is and then we can investigate the possibilities together. As she walks me to the door, she asks if I know about golden doodles or Labradoodles or cockapoos or Portuguese water dogs. I honestly don’t, but I suggest she get a basic dog book that breaks down the breeds and characteristics.

We leave and I think about my knowledge. So much of what I know about dogs, like what I know about trees and birds, I learned listening to my father. Chows are mean, Jack Russells are a friggin’ pain in the neck, beagles howl, terriers roam, golden retrievers are gentle and sweet. But I then rolled that information into my experience and have come to the conclusion that every dog is unique. There are absolutely dogs who are true to breed in their traits, whether it be stubbornness or mouthiness or gentleness. But I’ve known hyper and mellow boxers, sweet and vicious German shepherds. It depends on the dog, where it came from, who bred it, how it was raised and socialized. And though a howling beagle might drive my father crazy, there are events where people with beagles get together with their dogs for a massive howlelujah chorus.

I am always interested in what brings a kind of dog to a certain person. It’s like when you see a really odd couple—like James Carville and Mary Matalin—and you try to figure out what attracted them to each other. With dogs, it’s pure. You never find a person who chose a dog because it has a trust fund or an endorsement deal with Nike.

Unsurprisingly, the people who like Boston terriers often go for French bulldogs, too, and the whole flat-faced line. I do love all dogs, although some breeds, I must confess, I just don’t get. I never understood the appeal of Chesapeake Bay retrievers; to me they appear decidedly uncuddly, like they’re made out of wet clay, like Weimaraners. Pulis, with their mountains of matted dreadlocks, are also not attractive to me, nor are clumber spaniels with their Omar Sharif eyes. Believe me, this isn’t a judgment; they’re just not my type. I know some people may not think Boston terriers are beautiful. Some men don’t like women with long hair; some men don’t like women. I don’t choose dogs with protruding noses (though the two of them running around my apartment don’t know that). And for the most part I don’t go for big dogs, though I do love Great Danes. I always wanted to have a Great Dane just for the odd image of me walking it with a Boston terrier. I’d glare at anyone who stared at us and yell a crazy,
“What are you looking at?”
And actually, it isn’t that I don’t go for big dogs as much as I don’t want one sleeping in my bed, and that is where they’d always end up.

Certain dogs are better suited for different lifestyles. People who fly a lot and bring their pets along need them to be under twenty pounds to fit in a carrier under their airline seat. That’s a real consideration.

If you’ve got allergies, it wouldn’t be smart to choose a triple-coated breed, like German shepherds. In New York City, certain stores don’t allow dogs, but if you carry them, it’s okay. I could not manage that if I had a rottweiler.

I feel very strongly that people shouldn’t choose a breed that resembles them. The goal should not be to potentially end up in the local newspaper contest of people who look like their dogs. Though I understand that that may be unavoidable. I was once in a bodega with Otto reaching for something on a high shelf. Behind me I heard a woman say in a heart-stopping voice, “Oh my God—that dog is breathtakingly beautiful!” I looked at her; she was Otto in a blond wig.

Mastiffs, the dogs I grew up with, were chosen by my parents, and though they had very big noses and reddish blond hair like my dad, I don’t think he picked them for their familial resemblance. They were sort of big English country manor dogs, and we had a large house and lots of land . . . and sometimes my mother made Yorkshire pudding. The main thing was the dogs were the right scale for our home.

Sounds kind, right? Giving that big dog all that room to roam. Except our dogs always stayed with us in the kitchen. They’d pour their bodies into the tightest corner or the narrowest space between two counters so you’d have to vault over them to get by. This is one of the reasons I tell people I don’t feel bad about big dogs in the city. Our humongous mastiffs had a giant house and acres to roam. They’d go from the kitchen floor to lying on a small spot of grass outside the kitchen door. They didn’t ramble through the fields; they snoozed. Urban people tend to compensate for the space by giving their dogs lots of park exercise and the dog runs. My small city dogs do more with me than my Katonah dogs ever did (or wanted to do).

At night the dogs would sleep in my brother Matt’s room. He was the animal kid. His long body would be smashed against the wall by Lioness or Reggie, the largest of our mastiffs (weighing in at a lithe 160 pounds), who slept on his side, legs splayed, giant head on his pillow, managing to utilize more of the bed real estate than Matt ever could. It’s a thing about sleeping with dogs I’ve noticed over the years that is similar to sleeping with children; you can move them to a spot that’s better for you a million times, but they always spring back to where they were like a bungee cord off a bridge. Matt once broke up a fight between Lioness and a newer mastiff puppy, Thumper. They’d gone at it a couple of times, and this time it was when Matt was alone in the kitchen, having just come in from feeding the horses. Breaking up a fight is not a good thing to do, but I’ve also done it. As much as you know you shouldn’t, sometimes you can’t help it. And Matt’s arm got severely chomped and he needed a bunch of stitches. He still has the bite marks today.

It was definitely a Katonah thing, the multitude of big dogs. Like a Ralph Lauren ad, the picture wasn’t complete without the oversized, khaki- and sienna-colored canines. I remember sitting at our pool watching Reggie, the largest mastiff we had, lying down beside our chaise longue in the sun, his long tongue lolling out every so often to lick up some ants. Mastiffs also have a unique type of drool, dense and hanging in long curtains from their little black lips, usually containing particles of dirt or leaves or, if they’ve been lying on my floor, a sequin or a sparkle. But the massiveness of the dogs was sort of specific to the country life. I always appreciated my friend Barbara. She’d come over to my house and yell, “Get them away from me!” At least she was honest.

My relationship with our dogs was strained as a kid. Mastiffs have triple coats and shed in sandy clumps of hair tumbleweeds. I unfortunately had asthma and allergies, so much of my connection to them happened from a distance. If I would pet one, my eyes would water and my nose would tickle. Yet I still had great love for them even from afar. Not unlike my crush on Timothy Hutton. Lioness was the dog I’d known the longest. We got her when I was four, right before we moved to Katonah. She had the most Nana-like personality; my father often told stories of how she watched us kids in the pool or followed us on sleigh-riding trips.

On the opposite end of the size spectrum, we had an odd-looking cairn terrier mix. We got her because a friend’s cairn had been “knocked up” by something long and flat, and they had free puppies. It was one of those oh-what-the-heck things. Her name was Meatball. My brother Matt rechristened her “Peenie,” like he did with every dog we had—none of them went by their Christian names; they all had their “Matthew names” (Lioness and Reggie were both called “Hoady”; Misty was called “Mewdance”) and those seemed to win.