Dog World Travels On Both Ends Of A Leash

1. entering the dog world Commencement I loathe people who keep dogs. They are cowards who haven't got the guts to bite people themselves. August Strindberg I was not a dog person of any kind in the autumn of 2001, when my wife and I went for drinks at a down-at-the-heels but newly cool Brooklyn bar called O'Connor's.Time Out New Yorkhad recently cited the place as having the best moose head in the city, a designation that said more about the sorry state of the outer-borough moose head situation than the dubious magnificence of O'Connor's threadbare Bullwinkle. The thing presided over a joint where black-clad, ear-cuffed groovies drank alongside pregentrification habitues. On this night, there were no hipsters in evidence, only a ragged row of regulars slumped on stools in the dim light, staring into their drinks. No camaraderie, no Jell-O shots, no bar food, no pickup action, not even a television: a perfect Dark Bar, just the place for the serious talk we'd gone there to have. Except for the dogs. What were the damn dogs doing in a bar? They weren't creating a fuss; the three of them lay on the worn linoleum, taciturn as their masters. I admit I didn't like it. This is Brooklyn, not France, where dogs are permitted in restaurants and intensive care units. Dogs had just never been one of my things, though getting one was exactly what we were there to discuss. The reason was our son, approaching thirteen and showing all the signs of impending adolescence. I say this knowing that we have been spared the full teen catastrophe. He sported no Mohawk, no piercings or tattoos. He never wafted around the house smelling all herblike. As of this writing, he still doesn't. Believe me, I know how lucky we are. But there's no denying that our son, like many twelve-year-old boys, found us lackingin wisdom, in charm, in spirit, in just about anything any reasonable person might expect from parents. I'm not complaining, merely pointing out the psychic challenge our little family faced. As an only child, our son is all too often the center of both attention and tension. It's an old story, but I hated being an actor in it anyway. Sometimes I'd look at him and his brow would be furrowed with an intensity of worry that stopped me in my tracks. What was bothering him, I wondered, and what could I do about it? The answer to the first question was everything, of course, and the answer to the second was nothing. And boy, did we share his pain, or at least remember the feeling. My wife and I vowed to help. Pets, we knew, are a time-honored way of providing kids with ready-made love and commitment, soul mates and companions through the uncertainties and agonies of adolescence. This assumption is one I took on faith, having little experience to go by. My wife shared her early years with assorted fauna, including a cat, a hamster, and Jimmy the Mouse, of whom she still speaks fondly. I grew up in a pet-free home, aside from a goldfish that died within a week and a little alligator we brought home from Miami Beach and soon flushed down the toilet, from whence it and its fellows would inspire generations of urban myths and Thomas Pynchon. Pets, in the childhood view I carried unsullied into adulthood, were demanding, unpredictable, and unhygienic. This impression was not changed by the succession of half-dollar-size turtles we got for our son. The turtles inexorably grew big as dinner plates, requiring frequent and ever more repulsive tank cleanings. But at least the turtles didn't have to be walked. What could a dog do for our boy that the turtles didn't? I asked. My wife fixed me with a look that suggested she didn't believe my question was entirely sincere. "You can only relate to a turtle so far," she said. Obviously, helping our son was a good reason to get a dog, but noGingold, Alfred is the author of 'Dog World Travels On Both Ends Of A Leash', published 2005 under ISBN 9780767916615 and ISBN 0767916611.