What the Dogs Have Taught Me: And Other Amazing Things I've Learned

by Merrill Markoe

  “But Merrill,” you say to me (and of course when I say “you” I mean “me”), “what do I do if I continue to be trapped, a virtual prisoner of dull conversation that threatens to go on until the end of time? Then what?” This is the proper moment for a polite but firm remark that allows you to exit quickly, one that does not hurt the feelings of your conversational partner, such as “I see by my oxygen sensor that there is not enough breathable air on this part of the planet, and since one of us is in danger, I will make the sacrifice and leave.” Then you turn on your heel and run like the wind—after, of course, waving a polite good-bye.

  Zen and the Art of Multiple Dog Walking

  I have four dogs. People say to me, “Four dogs! Why would you have four dogs? Isn’t that too many dogs?” and I can only respond, “Yes. It’s too many. I don’t know why I have four dogs. Now please, please, just leave me alone.”

  Because I am the kind of person who would never give a dog away after I have fallen in love with it (and also the kind of person who falls in love with every dog), I have learned to take a transcendent approach to the challenges presented to me by daily multiple dog management. After all, isn’t that the true road to happiness? The ability to meet difficulties and obstacles with grace, energy, and good nature? Which is why I am able to offer:

  Zen and the Art of Multiple Dog Walking

  It is “walk time.” You have put it off as long as possible. But the cyclone of dog activity whirling in the vicinity of the front door indicates that if you put it off much longer you could be eaten alive. So prepare yourself for the walk by focusing on the incredible joy you are bringing to these simple, loving creatures who after all have not nearly as many creative outlets as you do.

  As you get the leashes out, repeat this mantra: “I am one with the great joyous spirit that is all men and all beasts.” Continue to say this as the dogs hurl themselves at you, knocking you over, making it almost impossible even to hook the leashes to their collars, let alone open the door. Somehow you must let out only two of them, which is the most you have determined you can ever walk safely at one time. Four of them at once is like waterskiing behind the space shuttle.

  Having managed this, somehow proceed through the front yard with two fully leashed dogs under control while ignoring the pained, mournful yowls of the two dogs who remain behind, locked in the house. Tell yourself that the neighbors are not speculating about what mistreatment you are inflicting on these poor unhappy creatures. They probably can’t even hear the ear-piercing shrieks. Certainly they cannot be as loud as you imagine.

  Jauntily start out down the street, ready now not just to enjoy your “walk” but to appreciate the special way that two entirely different species of warm-blooded mammals can share a single leisure-time pursuit. Hold this thought for as long as possible, particularly when seconds later one of the two dogs wraps himself around a telephone pole and becomes impossible to unwrap because the other dog has continued moving forward in the original trajectory with the same velocity. Do not panic. You will not be ripped in half. Think for a moment about the complex geometry of nature. The way that the earth moves at one orbital speed and the moon and sun at others, while meteors and comets whiz by all over the place and yet there are no collisions. (Well, I suppose there are probably plenty of collisions. But none of them big enough to make the nightly news.)

  No, instead they all harmoniously combine to make a perfect solar system, and so it will be with you and the dogs. In just a moment. As soon as you get the one dog untangled. So you call with increasing urgency for the other dog to “STAY!” as you begin to move in the direction in which the leash has wrapped itself around the pole, noticing with amazement how the dog proceeds ahead of you, maintaining a degree of entanglement exactly proportionate to your attempts to unravel him.

  Do not grow irritable. Rather, think of the perfection in this movement. Not unlike the perfection of the way water swirls down a drain in one direction on one side of the equator and in another on the other side of the equator. Because so too does the other dog, who weighs 120 pounds, maintain a steady pull in the opposite direction—a pull that seems to be growing ever stronger because he is growling and arching. He is poised momentarily to begin a violent dogfight. The object of his hatred? A completely uninterested dog on the other side of the street who is roaming freely, unencumbered by human supervision. And as this dog gets closer, your dog begins bucking and snarling, baiting him, apparently calling him horrible dog epithets, causing the hair on the neck of the other dog to suddenly stand straight up. Now it becomes apparent that the other dog is in fact a street punk who has probably never lost a fight in his entire life. So you scream at your big fat lardass dog who eats health food and sleeps on your bed to “STAY! I SAID STAY! DON’T YOU MOVE ONE INCH OR I’M GOING TO FIGHT WITH YOU MYSELF!”

  And somehow, through the infinite grace of the workings of the universe, for once in your pitiful life he pauses long enough for you to at least unwrap the other leash from around the damn pole. Just in the nick of time, too, because at this point the dogfight was so close to start time that the neighborhood children have erected bleachers and are selling refreshments. And somehow through a combination of menacing faces and jerky movements you also inspire the strange dog to head off on his own down the street.

  Okay, take a deep breath. Everything is fine. Harmony is once again restored. And now, it’s finally time to “go for a walk” on this balmy summer day. Except this time a squirrel scampers by somewhere behind you, although you’re not quite sure where. Both dogs pick a different angle of approach in their high-speed attempts to apprehend and kill him. Now suddenly you are wrapped in two leashes, each tightly wound around a different leg so that you look like some kind of overdressed, poorly planned bondage pictorial. And in the heat of the moment you are knocked to your knees and pulled forward toward a blind turn where none of the motorists speeding by will even be able to focus on you before they feel you beneath their tires. You know you have to get out of there fast, but you can’t move either of your legs. And now your knees are scraped for the first time since you were seven.

  “ASSHOLES! I SAID STAY!” you yell at your dogs, praying they accidentally decide to listen. It’s happened before. If only it would happen again now. And magically, at the very last moment before you are meaninglessly mowed down by a well-meaning driver—a sacrifice at the shrine of dog recreation—bingo! They do! They actually STAY!!! Long enough for you to loosen the leather bindings from around your legs and get yourself back on your feet. And as you do, remind yourself of the incredible elegance of Newtonian physics. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Yes! Everything synched up in a big cosmic tango.

  But now your knees are bleeding and stinging so you gather the leashes tightly and march those two ungrateful animals back to the house, trying to remember to marvel at the uncomprehending, resilient expressions of joy they wear on their faces in spite of everything that has happened. You were almost killed. But as far as they are concerned, everything went very well.

  Back in your home, you want to sit down in peace and quiet and bandage your knees—at least take a moment to recover from the trauma of a near-death experience. But of course the first thing you run into are the faces of the other two dogs who have done nothing since they saw you last but mourn your departure. Every molecule of their beings is alive with eager anticipation of the incredible good time they know you are going to show them. Oh well. Now you have no choice but to hook each of them up to a leash and repeat the entire process again with an all-new cast.

  And this time, try to do it with more serenity, damn it.

  12,000 Square Feet of Fun

  I guess one of the really great things about living in Los Angeles is that you’re only a three-hour drive from a whole other country. I say this kind of tentatively because I’ve lived here on and off for ten years and have never actually made the drive across the border. Plus, when I mentioned my intentions to do so to m
y so-called friends, they all came up with excuses as to why they couldn’t join me. Everyone did warn me, however, of the reasons to buy Mexican auto insurance, which is why I left my car in a big parking lot north of the border and headed into Tijuana on foot.

  After passing through a turnstile into a dank cement corridor, the observant pedestrian immediately notices that all the garbage cans are labeled PRODUTSA. Voilà! Just like magic! You’re in a whole other country! (But I probably shouldn’t overstate the “magic” part of the experience, because the most magical thing about the cement corridor down which you find yourself strolling is a little stand selling Fresh Baja Shrimp Cocktails—a proposition that seems less than completely appealing, for the same reason that fresh shrimp never look all that good on sale at the bus depot.)

  At this point, the pedestrian may select from a bevy of variously priced cab rides. I pick a $3 ride with a white-haired man in a pin-striped suit who looks like Cesar Romero would look after recovering from a debilitating illness. He drops me off in lovely midtown Tijuana, in front of Woolworth de Mexico, where a big sign proclaims EVERYONE’S FAVORITE! PIE À LA MODE! Inside at the lunch counter are those four elderly white people Woolworth apparently keeps on retainer and sends from town to town, paying them handsomely to sit and drink coffee.

  Ah, Tijuana, where on every corner you can be photographed with a burro that someone has painted to look like a zebra. Tijuana, with its multitude of stores and stalls and arcades where you can purchase inexpensive items of no particular value or use. Like those jumbo-size paintings on velvet of Eddie Murphy and Prince and Madonna. A guy tells me they cost “sixty-eight dollars with the frame, or … how much you feel you’d like to spend, lady?” thus opening up a philosophical mind-bender similar to the one about the tree that falls in the forest and may or may not make a sound. What is the proper price to pay for a painting on velvet of Eddie Murphy? Pondering this, I move on to a giant bin of brightly colored automatic switchblades, which appear to be a good buy at $2.99 apiece, although I can’t be too sure because I’ve never priced automatic switchblades before. (But I do purchase a dozen because it occurs to me they’ll make awfully good stocking stuffers. And by the way, Tijuana is definitely the place for all your hideous-marionette needs. At no more than $2.50 apiece, they’re an excellent buy.)

  I exit this store and enter another one, and then exit and enter a series of stores so identical that I suspect the Tijuana Chamber of Commerce is trying to make me feel as though I am going insane, much as the guy did to his wife in the movie Gaslight. And out in front of each store there appears to be the same guy calling out to me, “Lady! This is the place!”

  I find myself following a blond kid of about seventeen dressed in tan shorts and flip-flops. “She said she’d do anything,” I hear him telling his demographically similar buddy. “Really? That’s what she said?” the buddy replies as they both stop in front of a store window. “Those bongs are so rad. My parents got one just like that.” We all walk in, past a large display of “pre-Columbian art” for $9.95. Inside the store I see two identically dressed identical twins (female) in their early sixties, each purchasing a bottle of Anaïs Anaïs. In the back of the store, just inches from the largest grouping of ceramic Little Bo Peeps I have ever seen, are clusters of pasty-faced Americans eating at dingy tables. And in the center of the store is a sign with an arrow indicating a descending flight of stairs and proclaiming 12,000 SQUARE FEET OF FUN! At the base of the stairs is a door, and from behind it comes the piercing shriek of gym whistles, my first acquaintance with “poppers”—a Tijuana custom wherein a restaurant patron has straight tequila poured into his or her mouth by a jovial waiter who is also blowing a whistle.

  I am the sort of person who feels uncomfortable eating alone in a restaurant, and I’ve never been around more than 8,000 square feet of fun before, so as I begin my afternoon of solitary bar-hopping in Tijuana I realize I am taking some kind of significant developmental leap (although I’ve still not exactly determined in which direction). Many of the patio/ restaurant/bar hangouts I visit are on sunlit rooftops and seem to have their fair share of guys who look like Bruce Willis on a bender. Everywhere, Tiffany-style disco music blares and clusters of people lean toward one another and act stupid while someone else takes their picture. I sit down next to a table full of blond girls who could model for a painting that would be called The Three Ages of Sharon Stone. When the waiter comes over to inflict the dreaded poppers, one of them giggles too hard and gets her shot of tequila right in the eye.

  Nearby, a Bruce Willis and his friend, a Bryant Gumbel, good-naturedly agree to dance with two notably older ladies who make me feel embarrassed for them by their very big, self-conscious I’m-sure-a-lively-older-gal-aren’t-I? dance movements.

  As far as I can tell, I am the only unaccompanied person of either sex in all of Tijuana’s bars. At the Tequila Circus, however, some of the chairs are molded plastic clowns adorned with horrifically bright, smiling faces, so a single gal like me can appear to be enjoying a glass of beer on the lap of a psychotic circus performer. Across the street, People’s: The Happiness and Joy Disco is done in a neo-Flintstonian motif. DANCE BACK ON TIME says the flashing sign as people I suspect might be shills try to encourage others to participate by boogying their brains out on the dance floor. This, by the way, is what happens when you accumulate some time in Tijuana—you begin to get a very definite sense that things are not at all what they seem.

  Downstairs at the extremely crowded Tijuana Tilly’s, I am reunited with my friends the multiple blond girls—each of whom is now dancing seductively with one of a matching set of suave black dudes. I’ve heard it said that you can tell if a person is good in bed by the way he or she behaves on the dance floor. Not being a dancer myself (and quite frankly, never having dated anyone who was), I cannot confirm or deny the validity of this theory, but if we presume it to be true, the three blond girls have met up with the only dancers in Tijuana who definitely do not have a sexual dysfunction.

  By now the harsh light of the late Sunday afternoon sun has made these “fun” college kids sucking down their shots of tequila look like the tired middle-aged businessmen and women they are destined to become. So I head back to the street to catch a cab. On my way I pass a storefront that says MARRIAGES AND DIVORCES. “May I help you, lady?” asks a guy out front as I take a peek inside. “No, I’m just looking,” I say. “Want to get married? Let’s get married,” he suggests, and as flattered as I am, I realize it’s time to head home.

  Taking one last pass through the stores, I notice with pleasure that whips are on sale for only $11.95, which I think is a darn good price, although I’m not sure because I’ve never priced any whips stateside (however, I do go ahead and purchase half a dozen since I know these will make good stocking stuffers).

  Talk about inflation! My taxi driver tells me the ride back to the cement corridor will cost five dollars! Even though I’m not the sort of person who likes to barter for things, I do manage to get him down to three. But then when I get out of the car goofiness overtakes me and I decide to give him five anyway. Okay, I’m an idiot, but I figure he has to keep driving around Tijuana while I get to go home. Which is exactly what I did.

  Greeting Disorder

  One afternoon, having arrived home in a bad mood after a long series of thankless chores, it occurred to me that it was time to confront my dogs about an issue between us that was building to insurmountable proportions. I called for the two largest ones, Lewis and Tex, to join me in my office. Since they never come when I call, the two others arrived. I locked them in there and cornered Lewis and Tex in the front room, where we finally thrashed the whole thing out.

  Me: Okay, you two, listen carefully. In the future it is neither necessary nor desirable for you to greet me every single time I walk in the door. Unless a minimum of two hours has passed, the previous greeting is still in effect. In other words, if I come in the door, and you greet me, and then several minutes later I go ou
t the door, only to return in a matter of seconds, you do not have to greet me again.

  Lewis: Ha-ha. Good one.

  Me: I am serious. Maybe it would be best at this point to discuss the purpose of a greeting.

  Tex: What is she talking about?

  Lewis: Play along. We don’t eat for about an hour.

  Me: A greeting is what you give someone you have not seen in a while. A while is a period of time of more than two hours. Try another example. I come in the door after a day of work …

  Tex: I would be so glad to see you that I would rush up and hurl myself at you. Then I would get up on my back legs, knocking you over, causing you to drop whatever you were carrying …

  Lewis: Listen to what you’re saying, bro. You know we’re not supposed to get up on her.

  Me: Very good, Lewis. Thank you.

  Lewis: Which is why the approach I take is to circle closely, using body blocks. Throwing my whole weight against her legs so that she falls over and drops everything. Same exact result. I never have to get up on her at all.

  Me: You’re missing the point. All that is required from a greeting is a simple show of enthusiasm. Eyes filled with a certain amount of joy, a bit of tail-wagging. That’s it.