Dog Songs

Yes, Cesar; I’ve been doing things by the book – your book, in fact.  Each day, my rescue mutt Willie gets his Recommended Daily Allowance of exercise, discipline, and THEN affection, in the proper order.   I’m doing it by the numbers – with some apparent success, as this dog is usually uber calm and submissive – but I must confess that by the time I get to the affection part of our daily program, I hear things coming from my mouth that I can’t quite believe.  While Willie squirms with pleasure under my caressing hands I find myself saying things like, “Has the world ever seen a dog such as you?   Has anyone ever known such canine sweetness?  Yes! Yes! Yes!  I’m talking about you!”

This sort of thing prompts the dog, tail thumping, to roll onto his back, exposing that adorable pink belly with its gray freckles  (FYI, Cesar – I’m finding everything about this dog adorable).  At these moments I pick him up and hold him close, whispering even sweeter nothings — things I’d be thoroughly mortified for another human to hear; proclamations filled with superlatives, declarations containing forevers.

I’m a writer and producer; an editor and project manager.  I’m a man who makes his living by lining up his ducks and dotting his i’s.  Yet I’m acting like a softhearted fool in love, thoroughly besotted by this small animal – a fifty-year-old man with his first puppy.

What’s worse, Cesar, is my new tendency to break into silly made-up dog songs.  This sort of thing has never happened to me.  These songs aren’t premeditated, I haven’t given them a single thought – and yet as I’m toweling Willie dry after a bath or measuring food into his bowl while he dances nearby these songs burst forth, unbidden — half-formed but exuberant expressions of… what?

Happiness.

I can’t call it anything else.  This great little dog – simply by virtue of his existence and proximity — makes me happy.  And when I make eye contact with him, his ears go down and his tail thumps – canine body language that seems to say, Oh boy, you are just my favorite human!

Willie can stand up on his hind legs and remain standing – shifting from foot to foot – for a remarkably long time.  He does this when he’s excited – like when the food bowl is en route to the floor.   His excitement and happiness is palpable and infectious, and one morning, as Willie hopped and spun on his hind legs, I sang a made-up-on-the-spot song with a Vince Guaraldi melody: “Breakfast time is here… Yes, it’s very near…. Bison meat…is good to eat…any time of year…”  I barely sing in the shower, but that very afternoon I was inspired to sing a variation on “our” new breakfast song.  “Dinnertime is here…”

One recent morning in the kitchen, with Willie lying across his lap, Richard stroked Willie’s fur and scanned the headlines, humming a familiar tune.  As I filled his coffee cup I asked, “Is that ‘O Solo Mio’ you’re singing?  And doesn’t that translate to ‘My One and Only?’”  Grinning, Richard looked up and replied, “Well, maybe it’s “My Other Only.”

Some weeks after my friend Kathleen’s lovely old cat went to her final reward, Kathleen told me in wistful tones that the house just wasn’t the same, that it seemed too quiet since the cat had died.  After a moment, she smiled and added, “Of course, it wasn’t the cat who was making all that noise; it was me, talking and singing to her all the time.”

I must say, Cesar, that this whole thing – the laughing, the singing, the unreasonable and inexplicable happiness – has caught me by surprise: who knew that adopting a dog would fill our hearts – and our home — with song?