These are the “dog days” of summer, so named because the sun rises in the constellation Canis Major (Big Dog). Sirius is its brightest star, as well as the brightest star in the sky, and Sirius was the name of the dog of the mythical Orion the Hunter. Supposedly, the Dog Days are the hottest time of the year, and I sure hope that’s true – the bank thermometer hit 96 here a couple of days last week, and that’s not why anyone lives in the mountains.
The Dog Days are also a timely excuse for writing about my difficulties in finding what I want when we’re shopping for the dog, Bodie, a neutered shepherd-collie mix who’s about 10 months old.
I’m old enough to remember when household dogs ate table scraps, stray rabbits, sundry rodents and whatever they could find in the garbage cans they tipped over. But that’s not acceptable anymore. You’re supposed to buy dog food.
And not just any old dog food. Every place that sells the stuff offers special “high-performance diet” concoctions, in canned or dry form. The propaganda on the label promises that your pooch will be a dynamo after a week or two of the enhanced-protein vitamin-enriched mineral-supplemented flavor-rich victuals developed by experienced teams of canine-nutrition specialists.
But why would I want that? Bodie likes to get me up at 6 in the morning for a 2-mile walk (my 2 miles; he gets more like 5 or 10, chasing birds along the river). Then he wants an afternoon outing, and an evening excursion. Between those, he’s bedeviling the cats or chasing cars along our side of the front fence, except when he jumps the fence and I have to go find him before a municipal employee does.
What I need, and can’t find, is a special “low-performance diet,” formulated so that he’ll lie about most of the day, minding his own business, and be content with a daily stroll to the post office and back.
It would be even better if this low-performance dog chow had a weight-enhancing supplement you could add as necessary, until the beast was too fat to leap the fence, crawl under the gate or even climb on your lap when you want to watch TV.
I have nothing against canine health, but there can be too much of a good thing. This could also apply in dental matters.
The pet-care aisle offers special doggie toothbrushes and even toothpaste, along with brochures that explain the importance of their regular use.
But why fight canine cavities? I speak from experience here: When you’ve got bad teeth, you reach a point where you prefer sissy stuff like tofu to red-blooded he-man beefsteaks.
In other words, if your teeth are hurting, chewing is painful. And if the dog had a few excruciating cavities, he wouldn’t be so interested in our shoes, hats, books, computer cables and remote-controls. As it is, I get hoarse from shouting “Leave it.” If gnawing brought instant pain, he’d give up all on his own. We need some sugar-laden doggie treats, not special toothpaste.
As for remotes, it would be great if they sold them for dogs. Why bother with time-consuming training classes if you could just push “Play,” “Pause” and “Mute”?
But then I realized that our technology still has a ways to go. Electron microscopes can display atomic structure, and perhaps even find the compassion in a “compassionate conservative,” but that immense degree of magnification might not suffice to find the portion of a dog’s brain that is not devoted to food, and thus it would be impossible to implant the control electrodes in the proper locations.
However, if an electronic ankle bracelet allows the authorities to keep tabs on Martha Stewart, then an electronic dog collar should function in much the same manner: It could send you an alarm every time the critter ventured outside the yard, and perhaps even provide detailed GPS coordinates for finding him when he’s skulking down a distant alley.
Of course, if the dog was fat and lazy, he wouldn’t be wandering around. Nutrition is the key here, and if the American fast-food industry can produce stuff that makes humans fat and lazy, then our pet-food purveyors certainly ought to be able to provide some useful, low-performance dog food. Otherwise I’ll be getting way more exercise than I want, even after these torrid Dog Days fade into the delights of autumn.
Ed Quillen of Salida (ed@cozine.com) is a former newspaper editor whose column appears Tuesday and Sunday.
