There are different kinds of dogs in the world when it comes to being walked. Some dogs are completely indifferent pieces of shit and are perfectly happy to sit on the couch and die. I do not have such a dog. I have a Brittany—more precisely, the infinitely more snobby version known as a “Brittany-From-A-Rescue"—named Amelia. I love Amelia, and she is currently standing here staring at me and smelling of rotting fish from the muddy road puddle she lay in for five minutes last night on her walk that did not contain fish, either rotting or otherwise.
When Amelia doesn’t get her walk, we call her by her nickname: “SHIT!!! WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO TO MY SHIT?!?”.
Note that this is one of the few names that is also a rhetorical question.
You see, the Brittany-From-A-Rescue is a ranging hunter. They were bred to cover wide expanses of territory flushing pigeons out of the brush so their owners could shoot them, presumably knowing in the back of their mind they would be getting more than their fair share at the dinner table that night plus whatever they could steal. You cannot tire them out with a seven-mile hike one day and expect them to be good for the following day. They recharge like a cell phone overnight, ready to hurl themselves around the yard and throw you bicycle on top of the garage if you don’t put on their leash again.
For the last three days I have been gone from about 1:00–8:45 teaching up in Ft. Collins. From a humane standpoint, this is about the maximum amount of time any dog should be left alone, and naturally there are going to be some consequences. I have done my best to hide anything of great personal value behind barriers that are penetrable only by way of the opposable thumb, and much like D-Day, I’ve consigned myself to the fact that some of them aren't going to make it. To compound the problem, my wife is being a real bitch about it by being in Italy.
Therefore, I have witnessed four stages in non-walk evolution. They are as follows:
Day One: The spaniel plays on the worst part of your guilty conscience by staring pathetically at the door and waiting until you look at her to show the extra-hopeful head-down eyes, furiously wagging her tail and physically vibrating.
She will be shitty on her leash for about fifteen minutes until she gets all of this out of her system.
Day Two: Everything near the door will be fucked up, fanning out from it like the keyhole was the exhaust outflow from a jet engine. Cushions will be thrown off furniture, toys will be ripped to pieces, and their stuffing strewn about the living room like a Sigfried & Roy show after a particularly “off” night.
You will have a damaged rotator cuff after the walk, and for the first fifteen minutes have little hippie sit-ins if she doesn’t get to go where she wants.
Day Three: All of the above, plus she suddenly doesn’t understand the plain English everyone including her knows that we know she knows, such as “Would you please stop raping my personal space and person, sweetie?” Additionally, she becomes an intolerable ball of annoyance, and your shit could turn up anywhere in the house, destroyed to varying degrees.
You have put her behind schedule. She will now be executing her carefully orchestrated business plan, and you are her employee and deep subordinate in this affair.
Day Four:…
I have seen this only once, and it was enough.
It is said that when Pandora opened her box all the evils of the world came flooding out to bite and sting mankind for the sin of Prometheus’ defiance of the Olympian gods; the sin being that Prometheus felt bad seeing humans walking their dogs in the freezing cold and gave them fire so they could enjoy a few pleasant evenings by the fireplace drinking wine and relaxing.
This is in part true, and in part incorrect.
You see, the Brittany-From-A-Rescue going on four days without a walk is similar to Pandora’s Box in that it will unleash all the horrors of the world upon you. However, unlike the box, these plagues do not simply escape and fly off. Like an industrial sewage line, the Brittany-From-A-Rescue will expel them in an unending, high-pressure torrent of feces…forever. And unapologetically so. You will walk in the house and find objects you know damned well she had no physical means of getting, much less even lifting, in places she shouldn’t be able to get them. You may walk into the bedroom and find an upside-down filthy wheel barrow from the garage sitting in the middle of the bed, with the dog sitting next to it, staring into your eyes and wagging the middle finger that is its tail with total self-satisfaction that this act is both just and warranted.
The explanation for this comes from a far, far over-repeated falsidical maxim about the nature of dogs: “The dog is man’s best friend.”
Total. Bullshit.
“The dog is man’s best business partner…”. Therein lies the fallacy. Your friend understands that you can’t be there and keeps his shit together. However, if your dog decides you are not holding up your end of the bargain, i.e. hang out when it wants, give it the attention it desires and walk it consistently, it feels justified in dispensing of its obligations as well—being “man’s best friend” chief among them.
If you have a dog you know this somewhat nihilistic explanation is a fact. Yes, they are wonderful to us, but is it really being a friend when you forget to walk them and you come home to a canoe you don’t own sticking halfway through a broken window the dog shouldn’t be able to reach?
Not really. Or at least according to my definition of “friend.”