My dogs are getting old, and so am I. At this point, it’s really just a race to see who gets to die first. With my luck, unfortunately, the dogs will depart this earthly plane before I do, leaving me with a heart full of grief and an aching need to get another dog.
But what kind?
The last time I went searching for a dog, I ended up with a corgi. Then two corgis. Because corgis are like children—if you only have one, people start wondering what’s wrong with you.
My hound-hunting criteria at the time had nothing to do with the sorts of qualities listed in the Purina Dog Selector website—such as exercise, shedding, child-friendliness, protectiveness, drool factor, etc. All I wanted then was a dog that would make me laugh every day, because I was pretty depressed. My previous dog had died several months earlier, you see, and it didn’t take long to determine that dog-lessness was not a comfortable state of being for me. So I got a couple of laugh dogs, and have enjoyed their comedy schtick for more than a decade now.
But I know the laughter will eventually fade and soon I will be left heartbroken, wondering what sort of canine companion I’ll need to make it through the next ten or fifteen years. I could of course get another corgi, but my priorities have changed over the years, and so has my perspective on what qualities my next dog should have.
THE “SMART” DOG FALLACY
It is said that dogs look like their owners because human beings are a bunch of narcissistic navel-gazers who pick dogs who reflect their own personalities back at them. There’s nothing wrong with this; it’s as good a reason to pick a dog as any. And so, in order for my next dog’s personality and temperament to match my own in the coming years, I have determined that I need to find the slowest, laziest, stupidest dog in the world.
Now, sluggishness, sloth and witlessness are not normally thought of as positive attributes in a dog. In fact, several generations of A-type over-achievers have fetishized their desire for precisely the opposite sort of dog, one who is active, alert, and intelligent—you know, just like them! Such people actually want their dog to behave more like a precocious child, which is why America’s tonier suburbs are rife with prancing labradoodles who can respond to complete sentences and do remedial algebra in their head. In fact, any “poo” or “oodle” dog—cockapoo, yorkipoo, goldendoodle, bernedoodle, sheepadoodle—is a dog that has been cross-bred with a poodle, because poodles are said to be the smartest dogs in the world. And there are legions of seemingly intelligent, well-meaning people out there who mistakenly believe that a smarter dog is a better dog. These allegedly smart people also somehow believe that their super-intelligent, hypo-allergenic Mensa-doodle will naturally use its superior brainpower to be a more loyal and obedient canine companion.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
I speak from experience on this topic, because corgis are consistently ranked among the smartest breeds, and I once thought that having a clever dog around the house would be fun. And it is—for the dog. Because, given half a chance, a smart dog will use its superior intellect to manipulate and dupe its human cohabitants into giving it everything it wants. Pretty soon you’re spending an hour or two a day tossing a tennis ball at the park, feeding it the most expensive dog food you can find, buying poofy pillow beds for it to snooze on in front of the fire, inviting it into your bed at night, and waking at the crack of dawn when his royal smartass-ness decides it’s time for breakfast.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my corgis. But both of them are too-clever-by-half, so I have concluded that my next dog should be approximately half as clever as they are, if not more so—because as my own mental capacity declines, so does the appeal of a dog who can out-smart me. My next dog and I will get along much better if he (or she) is a dull-witted beast with no thoughts or ambitions of its own—one whose life, like mine, revolves around eating, snoozing, and shitting.
NO NEED FOR SPEED
Likewise, I do not want my next dog to be too active or alert, because what that really translates to in real life is a lot of running. And barking. And basically spending a lot of time trying to get the poor, neurotic beast to calm down, because that squirrel is not going to come down out of that tree anytime soon, and when the neighbor fires up his leaf blower, it does not mean that the house is under attack by an army of renegade vacuum cleaners.
Now, in my younger days, I fancied a dog who could go on daily runs with me and keep up with my busy lifestyle. But now that my lifestyle is less frenetic, I need an animal who is content not to run around all the time, and whose natural pace on a walk is on the leisurely side of pokey. That’s because, like so many things in life, the concept of speed loses its appeal as the years go by. To the young, speed is interesting and important, because it is a measure of power. Speedy things win races and beat the competition, and that impresses people who have trouble winning races and beating the competition. Which, to be fair, is most people. So it is not surprising that young folks would fetishize speed and agility in a dog, which, when taken to the extreme, leads to something like a border collie or Jack Russell terrier—a dog so fast and twitchy that you pretty much have to devote your life to running the twitchiness out of it. Otherwise, all that nervous energy will be directed at destroying your furniture or otherwise making your life a manic hell of neurotic leg-humping and endless, yippy-yappy insanity.
As one ages, however, the idea of moving quickly and “getting things done” begins to lose its luster. The older I get, for example, the more value I put on the amount of time I am able to sit in one place without being compelled to do something. The longer the better. So over the next ten or fifteen years, I’m going to need a dog that matches my own declining energy level. Which is to say, I’m going to need an animal who is content to sit by my side for hours at a time without moving a muscle, lest the spell of contemplative serenity be broken. It has even occurred to me that maybe what I’m looking for is not a dog at all, but something more akin to an armadillo or possum, an animal whose most powerful defense mechanism against predators is its ability to sit still for long periods of time and bore its attackers into a harmless stupor.
The trouble is, most of the ideally indolent creatures in nature are nocturnal, and I am not—not yet, anyway. I need an animal who will sleep through the night—one who doesn’t mind the pump and hum of the CPAP machine, and who doesn’t feel compelled to join me in the bathroom every time I get up to pee. In other words, I need a dog who is indifferent to my infirmities and who, if he thinks about moving at all, usually decides against it.
A HUMBLER DOG, PERHAPS
This newer, slower dog need not be interesting, either. My corgis are the most interesting dogs in my neighborhood, as evidenced by the number of people who clamor to pet them and coo over their cuteness. This is understandable, since the cuteness quotient in corgis is exponential—which means that two corgis are not just twice as cute, they are four times as cute. Most folks cannot handle that much cuteness without emitting some sort of primal, high-pitched squeal of delight, and many simply faint from the sudden and unexpected rush of dopamine that so often accompanies a random corgi sighting.
Blame Queen Elizabeth. Blame the internet. Whatever the cause, people love corgis far too much, and, since I have two of them, their celebrity status on the local sidewalks is a constant distraction. One of my dogs has even offered to sign autographs for the locals, and only gave up on the idea after I convinced him that people would probably just turn around and sell his signatures on eBay. (Corgis are smart, but not that smart.) So, having endured the inconveniences and absurdities of canine celebrity, I now feel certain I am ready for a humbler, more innocuous dog—one who does not call attention to itself and, when approached by strangers, will be indifferent to their entreaties. Such a dog would allow me to stroll unaccosted through the neighborhood, save for the occasional passerby who loves all dogs, and cannot resist trying to break the iron will of a hound who refuses to play the whole “let’s make a human happy” game.
REST IN BREED
Having determined the basic character traits I desire in my next dog, the next step is of course identifying the breed that best encapsulates those characteristics. Unfortunately, when one searches on the internet for “the slowest, laziest dog in the world,” the results are not particularly encouraging.
First off, I don’t want a little dog that I could step on or crush if I happened to fall on it. So no spaniels or yorkies or pugs, please. Moving up the size scale, English Bulldogs and Basset Hounds are usually cited as lazy breeds that can be relied upon to nap most of the day. But I had a basset hound when I was a kid, and there was nothing lazy about him. And the lady across the street has a bulldog, so I wouldn’t want her to think I am some kind of copycat fanboy, as that would inevitably lead to awkward encounters in the street, and might encourage her to engage in the sorts of conversations I try to avoid—ones that involve pleasant chit-chat about our dogs, for instance.
Among the larger breeds, the Bull Mastiff appears to have the right combination of repose and repel—a dog that likes to sleep, but, when it’s awake, looks like it could tear your arm off with one snap of its mighty jaws. I like the idea of a dog who commands respect through fear, but mastiffs are huge dogs that shit mountains and only live 7-9 years. The same goes for St. Bernards and Newfoundlands, which are both big and lazy, but don’t live very long, either. And ideally, I would like to get a dog who outlives me, because when I die, someone—or something—is going to have to alert the authorities that my corpse needs to be disposed of. Chow Chows and Bernese Mountain Dogs are also often listed as low-energy dogs that roughly fit my lifestyle requirements, except that both breeds are also considered “smart,” and I don’t need that. Furthermore, all of these larger dogs require massive amounts of food, and if they don’t get it, I’m not certain how they would repay my forgetfulness. When I forget to feed my corgis, after all, they just pester me until I “remember” that if I don’t feed them, they will annoy me all day. Would a mastiff be so considerate? I’m not so sure.
And even the laziest dogs seem to require at least one walk a day. Which is fine most of the time. But as I get older, I have trouble coming up with reasons to leave the house, so some days my prospective pooch is going to have to suck it up and stay home with me. I don’t want to hear about it, either. When there is no walk on the agenda, I want my disappointed dog-friend to sigh, plop his head back down, and be as relieved as I am not to venture out into the cold, harsh brutality of another winter day.
I could also adopt a dog—a “mutt,” that is—but my criteria for a next dog has gotten quite specific, so I’m not sure how much luck I’d have at a shelter. If all else fails, I could ask them to call me if they get any dogs that have the energy level of a walrus and the general disposition of a manatee, but that’s asking a lot. Young people get confused when old people talk about dogs as if they are creatures from the sea, and if I went to a shelter in person, I’d be afraid that some helpful adolescent would decide I’m a lunatic, just because I want a dog that isn’t too obviously alive.
THE SEARCH CONTINUES . . .
So for me, the search for a dog slow and lazy enough to accompany me on my slide into senility continues. Fortunately, as my corgis age, they too are slowing down. Like me, they are starting to have hip problems. Walks around the neighborhood have also gotten considerably slower now that their celebrity among nearby humans has been established, and they must now sniff every rock and tree for signs of recognition from other, lesser dogs in the neighborhood. And they’ve both been around me long enough to know that there are days—rainy or snowy days, usually—when we are not going to leave the house, and they are mostly okay with that, provided I compensate them with something to chew on.
The truth is that, right now, if I had to pick the perfect dog to match my current energy level and temperament, it would very likely be a ten-year-old corgi with occasional hip pain who could stand to lose a few pounds but isn’t too eager to eat much less or exercise much more.
For now, my dogs and I are an almost perfect match—but I know it won’t last. Eventually, they are going to leave me behind and I’m going to need a new dog, one who is as slow and lazy as I am, but doesn’t know how lumpish it is and doesn’t care. Because that’s the way it’s going to be around here for the next ten or fifteen years, so it’s important that I choose a dog who understands the situation, and is all too willing to go back to sleep until something happens to move me out of my favorite chair.
A man can’t sit forever, though, no matter how hard he tries. Eventually, I’ll have to stand up, and when I do, I’ll be grateful if my dog and I can agree that, yes, we should probably go for a walk—but let’s keep it short, so we can get back to what we both do best: sit around and wait for someone to feed us.