The dog weeks of summer

It's easy to create a sense of disproportionate happiness in best friends who probably won't be with you until the end

Like most people whose dogs are at the top of their life-priority lists, I could find it easy to get bogged down in how short these animals are around, and in watching my own pet slowly out-age me despite my best efforts at active decomposition. I adopted Rosie when she was four, knowing this would likely mean less time with my new friend than had I come home with a puppy instead.

But providing a safe and secure home for an abandoned-and-sheltered dog was never about me, or at least not about my moods and whims. It’s about an animal waking up and going to bed happy and wearing the equivalent of a smile for as many hours as possible every day. This is one of the few quotidian resolutions I hold and consciously remember to apply.

The “one year for a dog equals seven years in human terms” rule-of-dewclaw is imperfect, but close enough so that one day in the life of a dog consumes as much of its expected existence as a week does for a human. Scaled thusly, four days for a dog is essentially a month. Somehow, these comparisons seem to impart urgency orders of magnitude greater than “one year equals seven years” does.

Obviously, Rosie has no sense of her or anyone’s lifespan or the passage of time. But she has her habits and whims, and she can be stubborn about pursuing her dreams, which include always demanding we take the left turn over the bridge toward Prairie Dog Central while running, and, for whatever reason, asking to be taken on car rides anytime we are outside near home between 10:00 a.m. and noon. (She’ll lead me over to one side of the car, sit down next to the door, and look back and forth between me and the car. If that’s not a direct request to be driven around, I’m allowed to treat it as such.)

If I cast aside my mood (if necessary; I’m usually not cranky when I temporarily forget that computers, phones, and media outlets exist) and tell myself first thing in the morning that by evening, I will have given Rosie a momentous “week” if I make some remarkably simple moves, the idea infuses my day with what feels like disproportionate flavor and purpose. And it never gets old, even within the same basic overall routine.

Think of the value here. Almost anyone can tolerate a shitty day. But who wouldn’t pay dearly to avoid an entire adverse week? And, as a corollary, to gain a great one?

I don’t have to do anything, other than hold a leash and try not to get injured between or during exercise or traveling sessions so that the cycle of random bliss isn’t interrupted.

Sometimes, we’ll leave the house to go running, and Rosie will plant herself next to the car no matter the time of day. I know in these situations that if I drive less than half a mile in any direction and park, she’ll be ready to run, and we usually park somewhere close to a spot we regularly pass had we just started running from the front door. She really does seem to draw intense purpose from scanning the residential streets we regularly run on when I drive up and down them at 15 miles an hour, sitting alert and stoic in the passenger seat. (She’s willing to cede that seat when a human passenger climbs into the douchewagon, but only after a long, guilt-inducing look of reproach.)

It’s also very easy to walk a dog when you have capable legs, are not in a hurry, and allow the dog to act like a dog. Rosie likes to stop and sniff things, and she also likes to graze from specially designated (by her) patches of grass along our walking/running/swimming routes. These are things healthy dogs do. I understand why dog owners hurry their pets along when they stop to do this “too often,” but what’s the real purpose of being out there anyway?

I don’t know if others engage in this kind of mental scaling, which could just as easily lead to lifespan-neurosis as appreciation, especially in an older pet in failing health. But it’s nice to know that any day on which I have the freedom to wander outside, and even the rare days I can’t, represent an opportunity to sculpt something that will leave a creature in your care pleasantly tired and drifting off to sleep with a dopey, yet knowing and appreciative, expression. Rosie may not be able to verbally express satisfaction or form a gratitude list in her mind. But she is very easy to please, and she makes it evident when I have done a simple job well.