Dogoneit!

My dog loves me. He lives to please me. He sits beside me day after day as I work in my home office, snoozing and occasionally offering me a glance or a couple of wags. Although he's been trained not to do so, sometimes he gives me a sweet kiss on my cheek or hand -- just enough to let me know that I am the apple of his doggy eye. He wants nothing more than to please me.

I know this because in the two weeks we've been together he's made great strides in learning my routines, accepting my rules and my role as the preson in control. He learned that at the dog park and at the beach he has to listen to me, has to come when I call him and to stop just short of going completely wild. He's learned that he belongs on the floor, not on the furniture. And he's learned not to beg at the table. In fact, he shows little interest in people food.

All of this was learned through rewarding the good behavior and scolding the bad.

I think if my dog had an opposable thumb and forefinger, he'd trott out and pick me a bouquet of daiseys, serve me breakfast in bed, give me a massage. I think he'd pet me 'til I purred. He's already put up with my absurdities far beyond what any animal I've cared for has. He's willingly put on a rainbow colored clown collar festooned with rhinestones for our daily walks through Hillcrest. He agreed to the lime green feather boa I got for him for Cinquo de Mayo. He even let me put on the Colonel Henry Blake style fishing hat I found for him at Dogma, the local doggie boutique. He's taken to these indignities with such good humor -- all to please me, mind you -- that some of the regulars we pass on the sidewalk have been calling him a 'Big Old Queen.'

But like most things in life, there is another side to this worship, this adoration, this passion to please me. You see, I know, way back in the far reaches of his brain, he'd love to be living outside, free, without a collar, surrounded by a pack of playful but fierce hunting dogs. Oh, he'd want me there too and would even let me be the lead dog -- but he wouldn't be spending most of his hours flopped out on a doggie bed in a spare bedroom in my California Condo.

I sense this by watching him play chase with any other dog. It is a portrait of complete abandon and joy. He may wiggle-waggle himself to near seizure levels when he sees me walk in the door after a short absence, but it's nothing compared to the wild out of body experience he seems to enjoy when he plays with another dog.

I sense this in the way he behaves when we go our for walks on the leash. He doesn't pull or tangle me. He walks carefully before me, listening to the rhythm of my footfall and matching me step-for-step as I speed up and slow down. His nose pulses constantly and is pushed to the ground as he snifs out the paths and secret messages of the other dogs in the neighborhood.

My dog loves me, but he lives for these moments.

I wish I could give them to him all the time. I wish I could turn him loose every day, even if only in his back yard. But I promised to love and care for him, which means (among other things), that I would keep him in my condo or on a leash at all times -- except for those occasions when I take him to one of the leash free parks in town. To love him I have to take away his freedom, corral him. For him to love me, to please me -- which is his reason to be -- he must sacrifice his life as a happy vagabond.

It makes me sad.

How far we've come as a pair of sympathetic species. They used to be essentially wild, agreeing to guard our camps and help us move from place to place in exchange for a scrap here and there and a nest near the fire. Today they are our possessions, our things that we own. Which is not a bad thing, really. The 'civilized' world has become a dangerous place, with acres and acres of concrete and cars flying everywhere. It's no place for a dog to be free. Freedom in this environment would mean either incarceration (the dog catcher) or death -- and most likely the latter.

So we go on and love our dogs in this weird domineering way. And they willingly accept those terms for just another day of trying to please us. And it's ok. They get a home, they get fed and they get the loving focus of their own human. We get those full-body wags and discrete puppy kisses. But once, just once I'd like to find myself inside one of my dog's dreams. You know -- one of those where the paws are moving and litle muffled 'Yips' are coming from inside him. I'd love to see what he sees and watch him tearing from tree to tree playing chase with a big Lab or Shepherd.

More than that, I'd like to be that Lab or Shepherd.

Here: next time around the wheel I want to be a dog, a big smiley, playful, free dog. That's my vision of heaven.