my dog, the prepper
he's just looking out for me
One of the ways you can tell that humans and dogs have been shaping each other’s personalities for thousands of years is that dogs can get into this pattern where if there’s something they really, really like—like a treat, or a toy—being given one will cause them to become so anxious they basically can’t function. They will just pace around with their beloved object whining at a high pitch or they will try to hide it.
I had never personally observed this behavior until I got my own dog, Boswell, pictured above.1 Other dogs I have known were crazy in their own way, but their relationship to their desires was basically straightforward: if you liked something, you wanted it; if you got it, you chewed on it; when it was gone or destroyed, you asked for more of it. If it was denied you, you schemed. And perhaps learned how to open doors.2
Boswell is a perfect dog and if you even imply otherwise I’ll beat you over the head with a heavy object until your brain works right. However, he is also very stubborn and very fussy and has a handful of deep-rooted hatreds I don’t expect to ever get to the bottom of. Houseflies send him shooting from the room in terror.3 He is picky about whether or not he likes other dogs, but he seems to hate all golden retrievers on sight.
In any case, Boswell used to do this sort of thing with bully sticks and such. But now one of these loved-to-the-point of terror items is a dental chew called “OraVet.” If given one, he will either pace and whine and try to bury it in my bedclothes and then move it and then try again. Or he will scurry off to take it to his lair under my bed.
Boswell didn’t always feel this way about OraVet chews. I used to give them to him when he lived in New York and he was like… “sorry, no. Do I look like a dog to you?” But one of my parents’ dogs, Buster, loves these things to the point that after about five o’clock in the afternoon he’ll start campaigning to be given one. If you give him one before seven, he will campaign again.
Buster is a grumpy and melancholy little dog who hates to be touched by 99.9% of people he encounters. He used to have a thing for attacking men’s feet. But only men’s feet; Buster respects women. If you are in the .01% of the people he actually loves he’s a little angel to you. He will cuddle up and wag his little tail. To everybody else he is Mr. Sourpuss. Mr. Sourdog. Getting OraVet is the highlight of Buster’s day and possibly his only true joy in life. Aside from listening to Midnights.
Buster, who hates above all the other things he hates the third dog of the household (not featuring in this story),4 also recently decided to move into the basement with me and Boswell. And I do mean that Buster decided to do this. When I brought him down into the basement before, just so he could get a break from the other dog, he would bark at me and knock things over until I let him back upstairs. But he’s had it with sharing space with his most hated enemy, so one day he just… came downstairs… and never left.
