We need a new dog. It’s time. It has been almost two years since the departure from this world of our previous dog, Lucy, who was with us for 17 years — or, as we measure dog time, 9,307 poops and 24,820 weewees.
Lucy was, like the vast majority of dogs, the Best Dog Ever. We miss her, and the whole dog experience. These days we have to get our dog fix on our morning walk from dogs being walked by our neighbors, especially the ones that are built big and solid (I’m talking about the dogs; all our neighbors are svelte). We scritch them behind the ears and thump them on their broad sturdy backs and tell them that they are aircraft carriers, and they always wag their tails in sincere appreciation, even though I suspect they don’t really know what an aircraft carrier is.
The neighborhood dogs love us. This is no reflection on us; most dogs love everybody. You may have seen the security-camera video that went viral a couple of weeks ago showing a San Diego golden retriever named Nash giving a warm, tail-wagging, toy-offering welcome to a home intruder, and then to the police who came to arrest the home intruder:
The New York Times, a major newspaper staffed by people who apparently have never personally met a dog, ran an 800-word story about this video quoting three — yes, three — college-professor “dog experts” offering their learned opinions on why Nash behaved the way he did. But we don’t need experts to grasp the reason, which is: Nash is a dog. What’s more, he’s a golden retriever, which means he is extremely affectionate even by dog standards. A single golden retriever produces enough love to completely smother a city the size of Akron, Ohio. Nash would have provided a warm and friendly welcome to anybody who came to his door.
Anyway, we’ve been getting our dog love from generous neighborhood dogs. But now, having grieved for Lucy for almost two years, we’re ready to get a new dog of our own. We plan to do this through a rescue organization, with the ultimate decision as to which dog we adopt being made by our daughter, Sophie, who also picked out Lucy.
That was in 2008. Sophie, then age eight, having finally received permission to get a dog after five years of nicely but relentlessly wearing her mother down, was looking at portrait photos of adoptable dogs on a rescue website. Michelle and I tried to steer her toward the cute dogs, the puppies that were so adorable they could be in commercials for bathroom deodorizers or feminine hygiene products:
But those dogs did not catch Sophie’s eye. Sophie was interested in only one dog, which turned out to be Lucy. Here’s what Lucy’s portrait photo looked like:
This image is a re-creation, but it’s not an exaggeration. Lucy’s coat was jet black; dogs like her do not photograph well. Her portrait was essentially a pair of glowing red orbs. The rescue organization had given her the name “Monaco,” but it might as well have been “Hellhound.”
Sophie didn’t care. She was drawn to the description under the photo, which said that Monaco “couldn’t be sweeter if she tried,” and that she never ate food from the other dogs’ bowls. Sophie loved that.
So we went to the shelter to meet Monaco/Hellhound, and of course we all immediately fell in love with her. Sophie renamed her Lucy, and we took her home.
Over the next 17 years Lucy’s face went from black to white — it looked like she’d stuck her head in a paint bucket — and she slowed way down, but she remained the Best Dog Ever, right to the end. Here’s the last photo of Lucy with Sophie, the girl who somehow knew, from a brief description under a very unflattering portrait, that this was the only puppy for us:
Aww.
Anyway, we’re just about ready to start looking for a new dog to adopt. We take this responsibility seriously, because we live in Florida, where dog owners need to be aware of dangers that don’t exist in normal states. Killer toads, for example. Florida is infested with cane toads, an invasive species that can grow to be quite large, as we see in this simulated real-world simulation of a cane toad confronting a UPS truck:
Cane toads secrete a toxin that can be fatal to a dog if the dog licks or tries to eat the toad. And if you’re wondering why a dog would try to eat a toad, the answer is: Because it’s a dog. Dogs will eat an extremely wide variety of things, including (these are all actual things that dogs have reportedly eaten) shoes, socks, underwear, sofa cushions, bocce balls, umbrellas, screwdrivers, car wiring, teeth aligners, TV remotes, birthday cakes, wasp nests, soap, rubber ducks, board games, ceramic salt-and-pepper shakers, sand, jewelry, cash, passports, floor tiles, prescription medications, winning lottery tickets, toilet plungers and much, much more. The dog’s thinking — if that’s the word for it — upon encountering a new thing is: This thing might be edible! There’s only ONE WAY to find out!
I used to have a small emergency backup dog named Zippy who, despite having, at most, one working brain cell, was extremely skilled at catching, and eating, lizards, which abound in Florida. I would conservatively estimate that Zippy consumed an average of ten lizards per day. Unfortunately, the lizards did not agree with Zippy’s digestive system, so he had no choice but to vomit them back up, but only after he was back inside the house. For years a key element of my home decor was semi-digested lizard parts. If you’re wondering why, since Zippy could never keep the lizards down, he didn’t at some point simply stop eating them, the answer is: Because Zippy was a dog.
Of course the scariest threat to dogs in Florida is alligators. Recently, on our morning walk, Michelle and I encountered a neighborhood dog named Jax, a German shorthaired pointer, who had a wound on his back.
Jax’s owner, Robert Rose, told us that Jax got the wound during a recent trip to a rural property Rose owns near Tallahassee. There’s a pond on the property where Rose raises fish; he was checking the fish feeders when Jax waded into the pond. Then, as Rose recalled:
“I heard this splash, and I looked over where Jax was, and I see a gator head. So I just started yelling his name and just ran as fast as I could, and by the time I got there, Jax was vertical in the water. The gator had him, and literally all you could see was his nose and his eyes, and his paws frantically pawing at the surface of the water. And so I ran in, grabbed him by the collar, and jerked him out. I was just really fortunate that the gator didn’t have a real grip on him.”
I asked Rose if he was scared, running into the pond with the gator.
“I really didn’t think through the whole thing,” he said. “It was just, I mean, literally, I saw my dog, saw the gator. Had I known he was as big as he was, I might not have.”
We now know exactly how big the gator was, because Rose, not wanting Jax to become Gator Chow, applied to the state for a permit to kill it. After a visit from a state biologist, the permit was granted, and Rose dispatched the gator with the help of his son, Tanner, his son’s friend Jared, some rancid chickens for bait, some grappling hooks, and a bang stick. Here’s the gator, with Rose, Jax and Tanner:
Yikes. The gator was, as Rose put it, “a monster,” 11 feet long and 380 pounds. So Jax is one lucky dog. I asked Rose if Jax’s horrific experience had taught him to stay out of the pond.
“For about 36 hours,” Rose said. “Unfortunately, they don’t learn those lessons.”
That’s right, they don’t. Because they’re dogs. As opposed to nuclear physicists. But we love them anyway, because they love us more. Which is why Michelle and I are planning to adopt another one. Sophie will select it for us, and it will be the Best Dog Ever, and we’ll do our best to keep it healthy and safe. But if somehow, God forbid, our dog is ever attacked by a major alligator, I know — because I have been inspired by the selfless courage of Robert Rose — exactly what I will do, without a moment’s hesitation: I will call Robert Rose.
And now, speaking of inspiring, it’s time to hear from you paying subscribers, who are the Best Subscribers Ever. Today we have three scientific polls.
Having written about dogs you’re guaranteed 5,000 adoring comments, none of which will say “my dog was a sniveling power-hungry mean-spirited narcissist who cared only about himself.” Humans: take note.
Lick the Toad would be a great name for a rock band, but it's way too close to Toad the Wet Sprocket, which is actually the name of an 80's rock band.