Before you get a dog, you get a lot of input on what it’s like to have a dog. This input comes from memes – which suggest that owning a dog will fix all your world woes and give you understand second only to the pithy understandings of Marcus Aurelius. The dog-human relationship in movies and TV is often so chummy and sympatico that it’s easy to forget that the studios have a fleet of well-trained dogs ready to hang out with Brad Pitt.
But these depictions hardly cover the dog-human relationship in all its gory glory. Oh, I’m not saying the depictions are wrong. I am indeed best buddies with my dog. And my life has been infinitely enhanced since we welcomed her into our home. She is a pure lapdog – originally bred by Tibetan monks to be pleasant towards people (royalty and other monks) and keep them company. Her job was to hang out and be delightful with a side gig as a bed warmer. So those depictions are correct, I’m just saying they leave some stuff out.
What they leave out is the part where you learn maybe too much about your dog. Burke and I discuss our dog’s poop and regularity more often than people who aren’t sociopaths should. I notice when she’s licking too much. Ticks seem unfairly attracted to her eyes, so I spend more time than I’d like to admit scouring through her face and looking for ticks, the world’s little dickheads.
It’s my keen eye that ends us up in the vet’s. Being a vet is another world completely misrepresented by movies. In the movies, vets are beloved by all things with four legs and they give off a certain St. Francis of Assisi vibe. In real life, vets are the pet world’s grim reaper. Once we get close enough to the vet for my dog to understand that’s where she’s going, she tries her best to get the hell away. Once in the waiting room, she shivers the whole time – as do all the other animals. We get in to the office.
“She’s been peeing a lot.”
“Do you have some of her urine?”
“I do,” I say, extracting a test tube from my bag like it’s a bottle of water. “Here you go.”
I’m not sure, but I think another aspect left out of the movie version of the dog-human relationship is the collecting of urine for a pee sample. Don’t remember seeing Brad Pitt running around behind the dog with a test tube. Nope.
“So, she has a slight urinary tract infection. You will give her antibiotics for this.”
“Okay. But she also has a very slight yeast infection – that’s why she’s licking so much.”
“Okay. What do—”
She takes out a tube of ointment and it suddenly dawns on me how I will treat this one. She points out the area – exactly the area you associate yeast infections with – and then applies the cream. The dog accepts her fate with a mixture of gratitude and probably humor.
Let me tell you one thing they leave out of the dog-human relationship in movies: applying ointment to your dog’s yeast infection. But it’s what we do for our little buddies. She is after all delightful and my bed warmer. But what I wouldn’t give to see Brad Pitt do this in a movie.
