{"id":6441,"date":"2026-05-12T07:02:54","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T05:02:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=6441"},"modified":"2026-05-12T07:02:54","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T05:02:54","slug":"untold-aspects-of-the-dog-human-relationship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=6441","title":{"rendered":"Untold Aspects of the Dog-Human Relationship"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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National Dress Up Your Pet Day: Maisy is less thrilled by this holiday <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Before you get a dog, you get a lot of input on what it\u2019s like to have a dog. This input comes from memes \u2013 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\u2019s easy to forget that the studios have a fleet of well-trained dogs ready to hang out with Brad Pitt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But these depictions hardly cover the dog-human relationship in all its gory glory. Oh, I\u2019m 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 \u2013 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\u2019m just saying they leave some stuff out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What they leave out is the part where you learn maybe too much about your dog. Burke and I discuss our dog\u2019s poop and regularity more often than people who aren\u2019t sociopaths should. I notice when she\u2019s licking too much. Ticks seem unfairly attracted to her eyes, so I spend more time than I\u2019d like to admit scouring through her face and looking for ticks, the world\u2019s little dickheads.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s my keen eye that ends us up in the vet\u2019s. 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\u2019s grim reaper. Once we get close enough to the vet for my dog to understand that\u2019s where she\u2019s going, she tries her best to get the hell away. Once in the waiting room, she shivers the whole time \u2013 as do all the other animals. We get in to the office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe\u2019s been peeing a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDo you have some of her urine?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI do,\u201d I say, extracting a test tube from my bag like it\u2019s a bottle of water. \u201cHere you go.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m 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\u2019t remember seeing Brad Pitt running around behind the dog with a test tube. Nope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo, she has a slight urinary tract infection. You will give her antibiotics for this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOkay. But she also has a very slight yeast infection \u2013 that\u2019s why she\u2019s licking so much.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOkay. What do\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She takes out a tube of ointment and it suddenly dawns on me how I will treat this one. She points out the area \u2013 exactly the area you associate yeast infections with \u2013 and then applies the cream. The dog accepts her fate with a mixture of gratitude and probably humor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me tell you one thing they leave out of the dog-human relationship in movies: applying ointment to your dog\u2019s yeast infection. But it\u2019s what we do for our little buddies. She is after all delightful and my bed warmer. But what I wouldn\u2019t give to see Brad Pitt do this in a movie.    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

National Dress Up Your Pet Day: Maisy is less thrilled by this holiday Before you get a dog, you get a lot of input on what it\u2019s like to have a dog. This input comes from memes \u2013 which suggest that owning a dog will fix all your world woes and give you understand second […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/damiengaleone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/GS1iZ1Gr.jpg?fit=1536%2C2048&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-1FT","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6441"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6442,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6441\/revisions\/6442"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}