Ah, dog stories. There are books full of them.

MAN’S BEST FRIEND

Talk about relationships: man’s best friend, Canis domesticus, Guardius dedicado, Barkus protectivus, Lickus plateus, patient listener, uncomplaining companion, eager helper, and therapist substitute.

Have you ever noticed when you leave and come back, it doesn’t matter if you’ve been gone for five minutes or five days, your dog is so glad to see you? Can you think of a single human being that is that glad to see you!

Say you’re going to run into town. You jump in the pickup, but you’ve forgotten the car keys, so you race back in the house. The dog licks your hand, and your spouse says, “I thought you left.”

Granted, there are times when Canis domesticus becomes Canis estupido. Like when you visit a strange farm with your dog in the back of the truck. You are met by a pack of uncivil ruckus-makers surrounding your pickup and barking your arrival to everyone within half a mile.

Your well-mannered beast suddenly forgets that he has been to obedience home school. Forgets all the long patient hours you and he spent together learning to sit, stay, heel, sic ’em, and “away to me.” He becomes Goofy, King of the Jungle, engaged in a barking battle when, without warning, his brain comes loose! He leaps from the back of the pickup into the pack of howling farm dogs, and they all disappear around the barn.

But in spite of these semiregular appearances of “good dog dot dom,” there are tender moments: like when you’ve had some assault on your heart or your pride or your satisfied status quo. You walk down by the creek or out to the haystack just to be alone to deal with this new reality.

Accompanying you, as always if you let him, is Old Faithful. Head in your lap, paw on your knee, ready to agree to anything you say, ready to soak up a tear or a curse or a sigh. Guardian of your most secret thoughts. Friend without strings, as true as a mother’s love, as faithful as Siamese twins, and all for the price of a scratch behind the ear.