Why Have a Dog?

Today as I was walking down the street a car drove by with a bumper sticker reading "A dog is good for..." Trouble is, before I could find out what the dog was good for, the car drove out of my sight. Which of course, left me wondering what a dog might be good for.

My parents have a dog named Tess, a beautiful but obnoxious German shepherd. It's now almost a year old and a complete pain in the... She's jumping on everyone, blissfully unaware that her paws are full of mud from the recent rain. She's barking half the night because - well, it's one of those dog things. She's happily stealing all my parents possessions that are left in the garden - the front mat was found soiled in the back yard, one slipper was discovered amongst the rose bushes.

The other day, my dad, who was working in the garden, saw Tess proudly walking by with his glasses in her mouth (he inadvertently forgot them on the porch). My dad managed to retrieve the glasses, but the next day when he left them on the table outside they disappeared for good. They found some early grave somewhere in the yard.

There you go - that's one of the famous tales of Tess. Then, I ask, why bother with a dog?

But you see, sometimes I have dreams about Tess. She is this lively, energetic being that knows a lot of things that I don't. I don't know how to bark, how to eat a bone, how to smell and detect movement in the bushes hundreds of miles away, how to always be happy when the owner comes. This is stuff I will never know.

There's something reassuring, peaceful and faithful about a dog - perhaps it's the ability to be part of nature without second thoughts. Perhaps it's my perception of connecting with nature. Perhaps it's a realization that in the end we're not that different, man and dog, and that our obsessing to commune only with other human beings can be a bit tiring. Why have a dog? Because she can teach me a lot of things about myself that I didn't know - like belonging to nature.