Dogs are for Amusement

This post is contributed by Barnaby Porter from his archives. Read the previous post here.

I was talking on the phone with a book editor about a popular columnist who has written several books. “Oh, he’s good,” she said. “Everyone seems to like this his stuff, but God I wish he’d write about something else besides his damned dog!”

As I nodded stupidly in agreement, I was thinking, “You’d better overhaul your subject-selection process, Buster. Dogs aren’t a safe subject anymore.” And I wondered if that applied to kids as well. The two areas I have always thought of as “safe” were “Dogs” and “Kids.” With an idle remark, this professional shook my confidence in what had been a happily simple formula, and I have had to think it out.

Not everyone likes dogs all that much, I suppose. Kids neither. For some reason, that caustic old crank, W.C. Field, comes to mind – “Get away from me, boy; you bother me.” He was a funny man. His brand of humor and his popularity were founded, however, not on cheerful acceptance but rather a grumbling intolerance of, among other things, the shenanigans and mayhem of innocents. A lot of people are bothered by such things, but the way in which he reacted to those annoyances was especially funny; he tapped into the immediately recognizable common curmudgeon among us.

I’m not exactly crazy about pandemonium and mayhem myself. I’m used to it, but when the dogs are tearing up the place, chasing the cat, getting rowdy, I’m the first one to holler, even go for the hose if it’s handy. At the same time though, they amuse me in what amounts to a somewhat conditional relationship: I like a disciplined dog; dogs just aren’t always so inclined to be disciplined.

My wife Susan on the other hand, thrives on mayhem. She loves it when things get a bit out of control, just the way she loves it when someone screws up and makes an utter fool of himself – it’s an attitude… or rather an outlook on life, a cheerful, bemused way of seeing the chaos around her.

In both cases, the common denominator is our amusement with these furry, panting, tail-wagging, wind-passing characters we call “dogs.” In fact, I have become convinced that the principal reason we and most people own dogs is to have something to laugh at. Ours have no other clearly identifiable purpose. They are not working dogs. They don’t guard anything. They don’t haul dog carts. They don’t assist us across the street, and they don’t mind the store. They just hang around, eat and sleep and make us smile and laugh all the time.

And humor is good. My old dog, Hussy, whom I buried a year-and-a-half ago, kept me going for 14 years. She was an uncommonly good dog, sweet and kind and rather silly too, and she provided me with enough fodder and laughs for who knows how many of my weekly pieces in this column. When I finally said goodbye to her, it resulted in the greatest return of reader feedback I ever got. It wasn’t me; it was old Huss.

My new Lab, Winnie, will never replace her. He’s a whole new ballgame. He’s a big goofball is what he is, full of beans and a full-time clown – a woofing, turf-tearing, birdbath-lapping, yellow cannonball. One of his most serious pursuits is chasing seagulls. He’s out there right this minute, charging up and down the mudflats with galloping sucking sounds I bet they can hear across the river. He’ll be back up to the house for his breakfast in a few minutes, me grumbling and getting out the hose to wash his feet, Susan smiling at the whole mud-flying spectacle.

A couple of weeks ago, about 5:00 in the morning, he chased off a pair of gulls squabbling over something. He discovered it was a crab. Through my binoculars, I could see it holding up its two claws in defense from a crevice in a ledge, and Winnie, down on his front elbows, rump in the air, tail wagging, was furiously barking at it. This went on for 10 minutes, and I went back to my book at the kitchen table.

Then I heard a wild Yip! Yip! Yelp! Yelp! and looked out just in time to see a hurtling yellow shape, tail tucked under, barreling for home. When he surmounted the near rocks on the shore, I saw that crab had a firm grip on his upper lip with both claws, and poor Winnie was in the throes of a front-end dilemma, one he just couldn’t seem to run away from. So, he yelped and cried out and ran in a tight circle until (my theory) good old-fashioned dog breath got the best of that crab, and it dropped off at last.

That did it. Winnie was mad. He now barked more furiously than ever and, with a degree of caution I’d never noticed before, snapped viciously at what you might say amounted to the crab’s “buttocks and hamstrings” – instinct, you know – and in short order, as I glanced up every now and then from my book, his troublesome quarry was transformed into crab meat.

Winnie’s not even a year old yet; hasn’t even got up a full head of steam. I think we’re in for a long-haul of canine antics and belly laughs. “Never a dull moment,” don’t they say? What are you going to do? He’s a dog. I write about him. It’s good therapy.

Artist and author Barnaby Porter has had a varied career in marine research, aquaculture, and woodworking, among others. Most recently he partnered with his wife Susan as co-owners of the Maine Coast Book Shop & Cafe in downtown Damariscotta. In October 2021, Barnaby completed his tenure on Coastal Rivers’ Board of Trustees after six years of service.