A letter to Grandma and Grandpa

Dear Grandma and Grandpa:

I'm writing you today for a number of reasons. I'll start off with something positive.

1) I had so much fun at your house yesterday. Thanks for inviting me over for Christmas. Thank you too for the treats and the Christmas ornament. I also liked that Grandpa was wearing his hat "I love my Granddog" that I gave him for his birthday last year.

2) I'm sorry for peeing on Grandpa's chair. I got so excited to see you both and Aunt Kathy too that I had to let loose. I was really trying to claim a place in your house because I like it there so much--and Grandpa's chair seemed to be the best place. I know now that it's not.

3) I'm sorry too for tearing up your rug a bit and then peeing on your garbage bag. Sometimes I just don't know why I do these things. It was very unlikely and it won't happen again. If you notice, I was a lot calmer when I came back after dad took me for a neighborhood walk.

4) Thanks for all the treats and the few pieces of turkey I had. It's always fun to come and visit your house. Thank Aunt Kathy for exchanging the clothes she bought me for a bigger size. I'm bigger than I look.

5) Finally, thanks for raising Dad. He's been so good to me after saving me from the shelter. I know that's because you raised him to be a good man and that he learned so much from your example. While he may never have human children of his own with mom, know that he treats me with such kindness and love and that it's all because of you. You can be proud of him--I think you already are. He is also very proud to be your son. I know because he tells me so all the time on our walks.

I hope I can visit you two again soon. Merry Christmas and a Happy Dog-urine free New Year.

Why does your dog pretend to like you?

I read this article in the Atlantic. I hope Dad and Mom don't read it because it has sniffed out us dogs in a rather scientific manner as genetic responders (for lack of a better term). Here are two quick quotes:

If some advertiser or political consultant could figure out just what it is in human psychology that makes us willing to believe that dogs are loyal, trustworthy, selfless, loving, courageous, noble, and obedient, he could retire to his own island in the Caribbean in about a week with what he would make peddling that secret. Dogs belong to that select group of con artists at the very top of the profession, the ones who pick our pockets clean and leave us smiling about it. Dogs take from the rich, they take from the poor, and they keep it all. They lie on top of the air-conditioning vent in the summer; they curl up by the fireplace in the winter; they commit outrages against our property too varied and unspeakable to name. They decide when we may go to bed at night and when we must rise in the morning, where we may go on vacation and for how long, whom we may invite over to dinner, and how we should decorate our living rooms. They steal the very bread from our plates (I'm thinking here of a collie I used to have whose specialty actually was toast). If we had roommates who behaved like this, we'd be calling a lawyer, or the police.

WHAT is so exploitable about human society? And how do dogs manage to exploit it? We are, as the animal behaviorist John S. Kennedy called us, "compulsive" anthropomorphizers -- always on the lookout for behaviors that mimic, even superficially, human social phenomena such as loyalty, betrayal, reciprocity. These are useful things to look out for when one is a group-dwelling animal whose survival is threatened less by ravenous wild beasts than by back-stabbing fellow group dwellers. Our cognitive ability to ascribe motives to others is a large part of what makes us human. But it truly is compulsive. Human beings do it so instinctively that they are forever ascribing malignant or benignant motives even to inanimate forces such as the weather, volcanoes, and internal-combustion engines. Our very cleverness is the start of our undoing when we're up against an evolutionary sharpshooter like the dog. We are primed to seize on what are, in truth, fundamental, programmed behaviors in dogs and read into them extravagant tales of love and fidelity. Often dogs need do no more than be their simple selves to amaze and beguile us.

This is a long article but I poured over it to keep one-up on Dad. Then I ate the magazine which upset my tummy but it keeps me in Mom and Dad's good (albit stupid, according to the scientists) graces.

Read it all here. Fascinating.

And a great additional comment on their blog:

Wednesday October 22, 2008, Adrian
I remember this original article and how angry it made me. How dare the author sugget that my dog doesn’t really, earnestly love me?

But having had several more years to reflect on it (throughout which I’ve been person to one or two dogs), I still start by quarrleing with the way the question is put. It’s hard to impute intention as complicated as pretense to an animal that we don’t fully understand. I mean, do we fully understand pretense in humans? Then how can we possibly do so in dogs?

But then I go to the concept of pretense itself. Is it pretense if we express affection because we get something in return? I guess it leads me to the realization that there’s a selfish impulse in so much of what we do. I love my partner in part because he loves me. Does that mean that I’m pretending to love him? I don’t think so.

For people who have and “get” dogs, at the end of the day, the real reaction to the question is, does it really matter? My dogs get from me what they need and want to live (happily I think), and I get pure, unbridled joy from the way they express their “love,” pretend or other, for me. I think I get the better part of the bargain.

And the proof, to me, of the sincerity of the transaction is that when my arthritic, half-blind, and increasingly grumpy old golden retriever finally sloughs off the mortal coil, I will be heartbroken and cry like a baby.

Dad's found the article by now, for sure. He came to me in the midst of my typing and told me not to worry. He agrees with Adrian who believes that dogs and humans are rather symbiotic. I lick dad's head and he assumes I love him. So he feeds me and rubs my belly. Not a bad deal for both of us.

Merry Christmas

While I like to dress up as Santa, we all know what the real reason for the season is.

Thanks Father Dave

Fr. Dave gave me a Petco gift certificate and lo and behold, there was a nice pet carrier that I thought I'd feel comfy in on sale so we got it.

I jumped right into it and was happy to hear that it's airline ready. It fits under the seat and I can go through the airport in it. So now I can go and visit Mom's nieces and nephew in Milwaukee someday.

Thanks Fr Dave, for the nice gift and for putting up with me when Dad brings me to the office.

Marley and Me is going to be great.

If you haven't read the book, Marley and Me it is awesome. I cried really, really hard at the end of the book and laughed throughout most of it. The movie is hopefully going to be as good. Here's a preview.

I'm a star--The BustedHalo Christmas Video

Dad and I are major stars in the BustedHalo Christmas video. Hope you enjoy this and Merry Christmas from Dad and I and all the folks from Dad's office at Busted Halo.

Fr Jim Martin and I can no longer be friends

Fr Jim has this to say about holiday cards that feature dogs:

Family (Christmas) cards display — on the front — a photo of a happy family, typically wearing red-and-green scarves or red-and-green sweaters. Sometimes the family dog is included, wearing a scarf covered with slobber. Just as often, family cards show the clan on their summer vacation, posing jauntily in bathing suits in the Caribbean. These cards don't say "Merry Christmas" as much as "Look where you didn't go!"

But I enjoy the photos more when they're inside the card, not the card itself. Because more and more, even devout Christians have been replacing Jesus, Mary and Joseph with themselves.

Now "God" spelled backwards is "dog" but that doesn't mean that I'm pure evil. What's the deal, Fr Jim?

He did indeed reply to dad's email with the following:

Of course your card is lovely! It has not only you but the Holy Family, too! Who could object? Actually, that NPR piece really hit a nerve. I think people missed the point that I wasn't saying I was against family photos, just ones that usurped the place of the Holy Family.
Anyway, Merry Christmas from Father McScrooge, SJ.

Oh OK--all is forgiven. I thought he was originally trying to say because I occasionally slobber on a scarf I should be banned from Christmas photos! Merry Christmas, Fr Jim. You're no scrooge after all.