Dogged loyalty

I am addicted to solitude. A couple of hours of socializing and my brain feels like a pinball machine, unkind thoughts ricocheting off every neuron.

When I start craving alone time, voicemail is my savior. No more mindless chitchat, no more privacy deprivation, no more Pat, the kennel Nazi. The last time Pat took care of my dog, she left this message on my answering machine: “I need to talk to you about Sophie’s inability to interact with the other dogs.”

Are you fucking kidding me?

The only thing that surpassed the absurdity of that message was my reaction to it. Did I consider the source—a misanthropic, overbearing doggie drill sergeant who makes me seem like the patron saint of friendliness? Did I laugh at the ludicrousness of discussing a canine’s interpersonal skills? Did I chastise myself for being too lazy to find another kennel? I did not.

What I did, instead, was get defensive. With supersonic speed, I flew to the conclusion that Pat—the crown princess of social gracelessness—considered Sophie a loser dog. Visions of my loving, loyal Sophie, cowering in her run, shunned by the kennel community and counting the minutes until I rescued her, hijacked my sense of humor.

I wanted to confront Sophie’s accuser, but she scares the shit out of me. In my dreams, Pat sports a heavy choke chain I yank each time she says something offensive. In real time, this happens at least once per interaction.

"You push on the doorbell too long. For God’s sake, you don’t have to sit on it!” Pat complains. “Stop bringing so much food. You’re feeding Sophie, not the entire kennel!” Next time, I decrease the kibble and she bitches, “I ran out of food for Sophie. Are you trying to starve her?”

Email seemed like the safest choice, so I fired one off. “Hi, Pat. I’m sorry to hear Sophie is having trouble this visit.”

Emboldened by my intimidating opening line, I continued. “Sophie goes to a play group every morning and gets along just fine with regulars and newcomers alike. Perhaps you should examine the behavior of your other boarders before you blame Sophie.”

Whoa. Now I feared I had gone too far, so I threw Pat a bone. “My kitchen is being renovated, and the house is in turmoil. Maybe Sophie internalized my stress. She’s probably just acting out.”

Immediately, I was pissed off at myself for having written those last sentences. Sophie is a loving, trusting Labrador retriever. Even after a pit bull attacked her savagely, Sophie chose not to generalize the experience to all other dogs. My disloyalty appalled me; I erased the offending sentences.

With newfound resolve, I continued writing. “Pat, you seem to regard Sophie as a problem client, and I don’t like it. She is an exceptional dog.”

Does it get more pathetic than that? Sadly, yes. When my son quarrels with a friend, I skip the obligatory empathizing and ask what he did to cause the fight. When my husband has personnel problems, I question his supervisory capabilities. Sophie, however, is always right. This phenomenon has not escaped my mother’s notice. Her fondest wish is to be reincarnated as my dog—a role she imagines would be infinitely more fulfilling than being my parent. [Each time she voices that hope, I remind her that I gave away a loser dog once before and would do so again, in a heartbeat.]

Ironically, it is my mother’s fault that I have been obsessed with dogs all of my life. I believe the dog-lover gene went haywire while I was in utero. Her utero. Lucky for me it did; I needed some source of unconditional love. But that’s another saga. Bottom line: it is not my fault I have always known dogs are heads and tails above humans. Pat’s behavior merely confirms my point.

She replied to my email with three conciliatory paragraphs about Sophie’s many Lassie-like qualities. Here is an excerpt: “Sophie is a lovely dog whose sunny disposition enriches the spirit of the kennel. Her ability to retrieve balls is admired by all of our boarders.”

"Bite me, bitch,” I thought, laughing at the transparency of Pat’s gesture. Then I asked Sophie to make room for me on the sofa. I spent the next few hours letting voicemail do its job while I did what makes me happiest: I read a book with my sweet girl snuggled beside me, both of us unleashed from the burden of interacting with anyone who might feel even remotely entitled to scrutinize our interpersonal shortcomings.