Personally, I’ve no use for what I call “greeting card holidays.” Valentine’s Day, Halloween, Father’s Day, Mother’s Day? Forget it. Actually, I’m leery of any red-letter day that people imagine gives them the right to tell you how to think and feel. A curmudgeon? Absolutely. I tell people I’m the happiest SOB I know, with the emphasis on SOB.
I’d make an exception for National Dog Day, which people all over social media celebrated last week. Actually, every day is Dog Day around our house. Even the day Aspen ate a brand-new pair of loafers I’d absent-mindedly left on the bedroom floor. Entirely my fault.
If it’s edible, Aspen will eat it. A collie/Great Pyrenees mix, he’s the sweetest-natured big dog I’ve ever owned and an honors graduate of the Arkansas Paws in Prison program. Not a day passes during our outing to the dog park that somebody doesn’t tell Diane and me how beautiful he is. Children adore him; women too. He’s the Brad Pitt of the park.
No point getting mad at Aspen; he just doesn’t understand. Besides, he only ate the leather uppers. The loafers are still useful for walking. We do laps on the quarter-mile track inside the enclosure while our four dogs entertain themselves. Aspen visits friends of both species and plays chase.
One 90-degree summer afternoon, a pair of un-neutered pit bulls tried to attack him. Aspen’s attitude was “you can’t hurt me if you can’t catch me.” He can run like a coyote. By the fourth lap around the 4 acres, the pits were gassed and gave up. Their owner was politely encouraged never to bring them back, and to my knowledge, she hasn’t.
Then there’s Officer Marley, our “Cowboy Corgi” (half corgi, half Australian cattle dog): “Sir, I’m going to need to see some identification.” An officious little brute, Marley resembles a black bowling ball with pointy ears. When she’s not herding dogs that she thinks are playing too exuberantly, she’s making people throw tennis balls for her to fetch.
She’s trained at least a dozen willing participants. And not just any tennis ball, either. Only the special ball she’s chosen for that day. Otherwise, it’s no go. Marley cannot be fooled. Then she stashes her treasures in the car. Every few days, we throw them back inside.
Meanwhile, our two basset hounds, Hank and Sophie, go about their business soliciting petting. Sophie’s 10 years old. She came to us after her owner (and our dog park friend) Debbie Watson died suddenly last winter. It took a while, but Sophie seems quite happy at our house — a benign tyrant, Diane calls her.
Hank came in a package deal with Marley, a bonded pair of 3-year-olds needing a home. At the house, Marley supervises Hank’s every move. At the park, however, he’s come into his own, trotting about eagerly looking for love. (He’s as handsome as Aspen, in his big-eared way.) After he began showing a particular fondness for one 20-something human, she gifted him with a nickname: “The Ladies’ Man.”
I have to say that it fits.
See, that’s the thing about the dog park. Yes, I’m a grizzled, unshaven old crock with white hair, but Hank’s made me a sparkling new friend. Meanwhile, Diane has made so many acquaintances she could probably be elected mayor. It’s always been that way.
Oddly, New York Times columnist David Brooks chose National Dog Day to write an interesting piece about loneliness, and why people are so loath to speak with strangers. It was illustrated with a photo of people ignoring each other in a New York subway car. There were no dogs in the picture.
In my experience, dogs can serve as a social emollient like no other. We go every afternoon at 4 p.m., rain or shine, 25 degrees or 105. By 3:45 p.m., there’s so much whimpering, barking and milling around that there’s really no choice.
Over a couple of years, we’ve befriended dozens of dog lovers at the park, a well-maintained enclosure by the river shaded by huge cottonwood trees. There are Monica and Boudreaux. She’s a special ed teacher and raconteur from Louisiana; he’s a fearless, comical toy Aussiedoodle. Monica takes him to work — the perfect teacher’s aide.
There are the Swabbies — David, Steve and John — Navy veterans who tell tales about their seagoing days. There’s Patrick and Hurley, his Lab, who gets soaking wet and dries himself on your leg.
If Aspen points his nose at the sky and howls like a wolf, Charlie from Massachusetts is about to arrive. Aspen can hear his dog, Dexter, barking excitedly from a half-mile away. Several weeks ago, somebody dumped an aggressive. 75-pound male dog at the park. Charlie took him home, named him Boston, and taught him to behave. We walk laps commiserating about the Red Sox while Diane charms the fleet.
No need for sociological treatises. Adopt a dog. Take your dog walking. Good things will happen.
Gene Lyons is a National Magazine Award winner and author of “The Hunting of the President.”
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