HanktheDog Blog

Sometimes humans can even get on the nerves of your average happy-go-lucky Labrador. Mike was giving me a hard time last week at the beach for not being able to find my floppy disc. "Find it, boy! Hank, find it!" he was saying. But what'd he think I was doing already, sniffing around, my haunches going in circles? I just couldn't remember where I'd put the dang thing. "Come on, Hank, you just had it. Where'd you put it, you goofy galoot?"

Yes, well, this was rather like the Dachshund calling the Yorkie short. Because even though humans think they are, in the words of one of their better bards, "infinite in faculties,...in apprehension, how like a god," we, their canine companions, know better. In fact, there is no species on Earth who knows them as well. While children move away and spouses too often divorce, dogs are there as long as people want them to be. We take no vows, yet it it is we who truly take them for better or worse, in sickness and in health, to obey and cherish -- even when they're being pissers.

Mike's giving me a hard time for the lost disc is a case in point. Because there's just nobody spacier than he. I can't begin to tell you how many miles I've trailed after him in the house, my bladder bulging, while he's looking for his wallet... or his sunglasses (hey, Mike, look on your head already!)...or his keys (which he swears he had just a minute ago). I'm sorry but I've seen shellfish with longer memories.

Yet, whatever I may be quietly calling him as I trail along behind him, traversing the house for the fifth time looking for his damned iPod, I say little. (Though I suspect the iPod is actually in his pocket already.) I huff and puff but seldom whine, though you, dear reader, might say I've good cause. No, I am, after all, the understanding type. I still love the galoot. Because, as they say, to err is human, to forgive canine.