How Do Adults Fit Into the "Boy-Dog" Routine?

By Charles M. Guthrie
of the Minneapolis Tribune editorial page staff
published by the StarTribune
Feb 27, 1953


   NEIGHBOR BROWN won't be enchanted but one of these days I'll have to break down and buy the small boy a dog.  Our other two kids had one and just because our third came along some 14 years late seems insufficient grounds for denying him a pet.
   I am trying to back into this dog question nice and cozy-like because it has been a torrid issue of late and I don't want anybody getting on the phone and hissing, "You cur,sir" or yelling epithets and such.

   HERE IS an issue with no middle ground.  It defies compromise.  To discuss it is to consign yourself to a dance on hot bricks.  You either hate dogs or you love them.  And to love one for itself alone is not enough.  To escape castigation as a dog hater you must love them all.  This, frankly, I cannot do.
   I had a fair share of dogs as a lad, and to this day loathe the soul of the unidentified character who poisoned one.  But the pooch that really won my heart was a Boston terrier elegantly registered as Jimpse of the Bluegrass.

   She came into the household when my daughter was 4 and my son a toddler and remained for 13 years.  She was no great shakes in appearance, being runty and poorly marked.  Her tail was too long and so were her ears and she required a deal of housebreaking.  She clawed up the furniture now and again and one night ate all the buttons off my vest.  Also she had a couple of unsavory trysts with a mongrel down the block that resulted in events not so blessed.

   She was a nuisance--and everyone in the family was sold on her.  She would wade into any beast five times her size but was gentle as a lamb with the kids and always ready for a romp.  We hauled her along from Kentucky to Wisconsin to Montana to Minneapolis.  In her anguished rides on baggage cars we were  anguished with her.  Hers was a vast capacity for affection and when she died we grieved mightily.  There'll never be another dog like her.  Other dog owners have made that statement, too.

   BUT WERE IT not for the small boy, I'd never have another dog on the place.  I wouldn't give a thin dime for the best-of-show at Madison Square Garden.  Not that he wouldn't win my devotion if I had him.  I simply wouldn't want him.
   You see childless couples, or couples whose kids have grown and gone, burdening themselves down with a dog or two and maybe a cat and you wonder what gives.
   Childless folk, when they have dogs, are voluntarily abandoning the only advantage there is in not having kids--freedom.  Youngsters certainly rate high recommendation.  But nobody can deny that it is nice to have that relaxed feeling that comes with freedom from such harassments as mumps and measles and babysitters.
   Kids saddle you with cares, cares you are happy to assume.  And kids are entitled to dogs.  So, of course, are adults, if they want to assume about the same burdens they would have with children.
   You have to take the dog along with you on trips, or park him in a kennel or impose him on a neighbor.  He has to be fed and watered and walked and bathed and medicated.  The dog lover does this willingly in payment for the dog's companionship.  Not me.

   ANOTHER THING.  The dog has developed into a mighty delicate critter of late.  You can't even feed him bones unless they're the right kind.  Back in the old days we'd turn the leavings of three or four fried chickens over to the pooch after Sunday dinner and he'd absorb the feast with no ill effects.  Do that to Rover now and he passes away.  A bone splinter has pierced his innards.  Table scraps are standard fare no longer.  He is fed balanced rations out of cans and packages--with chlorophyll yet.
   Keeping a dog on leash, as advocated in the proposed ordinance that has stirred up all the fuss, is, by dog standards, a dirty trick.  But, from the neighbor's point of view, it's rather unseemly to turn the dog out the back door and let him wander about unchaperoned.

   A FRIEND told me recently that he was hard put to keep his garbage cans upright.  Dogs foraging for tidbits constantly were knocking them over and strewing the contents around.  And I am less than charmed when my sense of tidiness forces me outdoors to play swamper to the dogs that have convened on the lawn from around and about.  This perhaps is one of the natural hazards that comes with home ownership.  The chore can be irksome, none the less.
   But despite all the vexations a fellow who doesn't love all dogs can think of, I plan to get a pup for my progeny.  I trust that Neighbor Brown will be reasonable.

Copyright 2013 StarTribune.  Republished here with the permission of the StarTribune.  No further republication or redistribution is permitted without the express approval of the StarTribune.