The Dog Is Sick of Us
The dog is sick of us.
This is the joke we tell each other when he listlessly wanders around the four rooms of our apartment, staring at us with big chestnut eyes that plead “don’t you guys have somewhere to be?” When he realizes we’re not going anywhere, he huffs dramatically and flops his solid Labrador body on the floor in resignation. Sometimes he mixes it up and rests his head on a windowsill to gaze outside with a somber focus bordering on ennui. Jesus Christ. What was he doing before he had round-the-clock supervision? Sleeping 18 hours a day instead of just 16? Running an underground poker game with the pitbull next door?
When my husband and I learned that the COVID-19 pandemic would have us working from home for the foreseeable future, luckier than most, we thought—perhaps arrogantly—“at least the dog will be thrilled.” Yes, part of our assumption hinged on the idea that he loves us unconditionally. And on the fact that all of his favorite activities involve being near or directly on top of us: long walks in the park, melting into a complete lump under our legs while we watch yet another British procedural drama, sitting on me whenever I attempt to stretch out in the mornings.
But this is also a dog who, in his younger years, had separation anxiety so acute it required us to go through an elaborate ritual before we left the house that was the equivalent of Catherine Zeta Jones slinking through that maze of laser alarms in Entrapment. It involved: turning on a white noise machine and a 14-hour track of calming piano music for dogs; quietly sitting on the couch watching the local news so as to trick him into thinking we were staying put; sneaking out while he was eating his bowl of wet food, but not before leaving out various toys filled with treats to keep him occupied. You don’t know the depths of depravity until you’ve diligently shoved layers of cream cheese, ham slices, and cheddar cubes into a plastic cone to create the most demented parfait known to man.
You may be reading this and thinking, “that sucks, but I adopted a pet who actually loves me.” (Or maybe: “That fucked up ham and cheese cone actually sounds pretty good.”) But we are not alone. “At first we thought the dog would love having us home, but I’m not sure that she cares,” my friend Eliza, who has a greyhound named Chips with her partner, told me the other day. “She gets up like five times during the workday to stretch and move to the couch, or to the bed, or to the sunny spot on the rug. It’s as though we’re not home.”
She added: “Sometimes I feel like I’m encroaching on her space—if I try to pet her or play during the day, she seems more annoyed than anything else.”
My friends Jason and Emily, who have a small pug and poodle mix named Max, have been experiencing the same. “His behavior is to dispassionately lay on the bed all day where Emily works,” Jason said when I asked. “He spends his time ignoring her, and sometimes letting out deep dramatic sighs. The other night he contemptuously watched us finish a whole game of Simpson's Monopoly from the couch and did not get up to investigate once.” He also theorized that their recent acquisition of hobbies in which Max cannot participate, which they had never had pre-isolation, may be adding to his displeasure.
Meanwhile, my colleague Chris said that his and his wife’s bulldog Hank gets progressively worse as the workday goes on. “He only gets riled up during the day when we’re on conference calls—I think it’s the other voices—and tries to make his presence felt on Zoom,” he shared. “Hank is so cranky by the time night rolls around, we suspect because our being home all day cuts into his nap time. It’s like quarantine has turned him into an emo teenager.”
Until the dog, I had never had one as a pet before. (In the interest of full disclosure, I come from a long line of cat people.) Then I met a man and his dog. You can see where this is going. Plus, the dog was a bit of a pain in the ass. I’m a bit of a pain in the ass. There was some mutual respect there. Because I was new to dog ownership, I had no idea how in tune they can be with our emotions. How symbiotic the relationship is, how responsive he is to even the most minor energy shifts. How happy he is when one of us comes home from work but how he absolutely flips out with joy when the other one arrives later and we’re both accounted for. How aware he is when we’re wracked with anxiety—which we are now, around the clock. Maybe the dogs all got together and decided this would be an opportune time to get us to check our hubris. It’s more likely that they can sense something is up.
Even before all this, the dog was a constant source of comfort. The stark knowledge that we will never have as much time together as I want was about the only thing in the world that could get me to slow down and be present. Now, as if he has willed this to happen, we are entirely beholden to his schedule, only leaving the house to walk him. If he can tell that we’re not just staying home with him for the fun of it, he still jumps up to greet us in bed every morning. When we get out, he rolls around on his back snorting, thrilled that we get to have another day together. All things considered, so am I.
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