Read more of Karen Fishler's dog diary columns		July 4, 1998 |dog nature I've been noticing what complicated feelings human beings have about nature, which can be incredibly threatening but obviously keeps us alive. We seem to act out our ambivalence, on the one hand making sure we're safe from nature — which unfortunately often involves harming it — and on the other hand bringing it into our homes and our psyches because it comforts us. Our lives include plastic bags, cars, and anti-rot treatments for our decks, but we also water our plants, go hiking, and send money to environmental organizations.      Dogs are the portable part of nature, the part we can bring with us to, say, the grocery store. There's something I see in the faces of people who pull up in a station wagon or a van that contains a dog, roll down the windows so the dog won't overheat, and go in to do their shopping. These people look less stressed to me. They know that, when they come back out to the parking lot, nature will be wagging its tail and glad to see them. Of course, nature has been getting hair all over the back seat as well, but to me that would be a small price to pay.      It strikes me as incredibly convenient, this portability. Most of the time, to have contact with nature, you have to go somewhere and do something. You have to get in the car and drive to the beach, or put on a backpack and hiking boots with fourteen laces and get yourself to a trail so you can hike. With a dog, nature is right next to you, listening to the inane things you're saying, conscientiously informing you of the imminent threat represented by the UPS delivery person, chewing on a bone-shaped thing made of nubby blue rubber, or urinating carefully on certain bushes during a walk. And it's nice that dogs enjoy being nature for us, because we get an awful lot out of them doing it. Top docs tell us that contact with nature, in the form of dogs, is good for our health. It lowers blood pressure and so on. If I recall correctly, walking a dog is as good as meditation for settling one's mind. And that's an important thing; dog owners really have to walk their dogs, so the owners end up being outdoors, in motion. They become portable themselves.      There is, of course, a downside. Dogs often smell, at least the ones I meet do. Not that I think that's so terrible. It's a matter of degree. Less is more, I would think. Even here, though, the potential to connect with nature is strong. Your dog smells? You get to give it a bath, which incidentally also gives you the important opportunity to say even more inane things.      Then there's the licking of unmentionable body parts, an oft-remarked aspect of dog behavior. I think society accepts this as one accepts unfortunate noises from an elderly uncle after a holiday meal; it's just part of life. There's even a kind of grotesque fascination about it. It prompts thoughts you wouldn't say aloud. In my case, it always reminds me of a routine by the brilliant, rascally and unfortunately now-dead Southern comedian Bill Hicks, in which he pointed out that, if men could suck their own cocks, women would be entirely dispensable.      One thing shopping for a dog makes me look forward to, in a perverse sort of way, is the cleaning of our dog's anal sacs, something that apparently some dog owners have to do occasionally when the dog's own system doesn't flush them out normally. I forget what symptoms make this kind of cleaning necessary, but I do remember they were depressing symptoms you wouldn't want your dog to undergo. Needless to say, I hope our dog will be healthy enough that it won't be necessary, but if the biological mechanism breaks down, I will do what has to be done. As I understand it, you put on a pair of gloves and gently squeeze on either side of the anus, and some sort of fluid comes out, and then you clean it up and you and the dog can both get on with your lives. The descriptions I've read dwelt on the foul smell of whatever it is that comes out. I can't help but wonder about the color, the consistency, and so on, and how foul the smell actually is. After all, it isn't every day that you get to experience a mysterious fluid normally hidden inside a dog, in a place people don't even have (I don't think).      But I'm off the subject, or at least in a part of it I didn't intend to dwell on. I think I've made my point, which is that dogs may be the best part of nature ever created, anal sacs and all. Nature is essential to them, which is why they insist on getting us out in the neighborhood so we can play or at least do something besides send faxes and pick up laundry and make lists of other things we have to do. It's not like any of us should stop sending money to environmental groups, especially since dogs aren't very effective when it comes to groundwater pollution or that extra airport runway. But when you think about it, dogs help keep us going so we can send faxes, pick up our laundry, and do all those other things — including send checks to environmental groups. They help keep me going, and I don't even have a dog yet (and can't resume the search, by the way, until I'm finished with the six-week writer's workshop I'm currently attending). So here's to portability. Long may it wave. Or wag.

 
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