A Proper Dog
A Story about Civilization
Yukka knew from the time he was a small dog that it was the duty of all proper dogs everywhere to oppose the cat. Cats were enemies, and no dog worth his or her salt would stand for their tricks. His father, Tito, had explained it to him as soon as Yukka was old enough to walk.
“Give ‘em hell, son. Cats fight dirty. They’re always slinking about, up to no good. The only good cat’s a tree’d cat.”
Tito had taught Yukka how to tree a cat. Tito was a bull terrier and Yukka’s mother was a bulldog, but he and his father made up in ferocity what they lacked in size. Tito taught his son how to outbark even German shepherds, and he reminded his son that while other dogs would always outclass them by weight, they could outwork any dog born.
“You don’t have any control over how big you are, son, but you can control how hard you’re willing to work and how much you’re willing to hurt. You’re my son and that means you got some of my spit. You just show ‘em you’re all spit an’ vinegar, an’ the bigger dogs’ll leave you alone. They know it when a little dog will die before he rolls over and they won’t bother messing with you. The cats’ll run, too, because they’ll know there isn’t a thing you wouldn’t do to ‘em. They’ll know you’d as soon eat ‘em as look at ‘em. The bigger dogs, some of ‘em is tame, docile-like, but you can outfight and outlast any of ‘em. The cats’ll run. They’d rather a big dog that didn’t want to hurt them than a dog that’s meaner than a pack of hornets an’ what hasn’t met the day when he was too tired to keep truckin’.”
Sometimes, when they were out patrolling the neighborhood, Yukka lost his father’s train of conversation. He just let the old dog talk. He knew that whatever it was his father was saying, it was true. He knew he was cut from the same cloth and he’d always be a dog just like Tito. It didn’t matter so much if the words stopped making sense, it was the sense of all those words that was important and that was imparted straight from older dog to younger dog without either one needing to know exactly what it meant. Yukka knew that when his father got carried away, it was important for him to trot alongside him, shoulder to shoulder, and listen. Every once in a while, he’d yelp in agreement.
Surely this was the height of living, shoulder to shoulder, dog to dog, father and son trotting along through the woods, tearing through yards, darting out into traffic during school pickup. It was almost a game, seeing how close they could get to the tires of a Subaru without being hit. And best of all was when there was a cat.
They always tried to chase cats into the traffic, in the hopes that one day one would go splat. No cat was ever foolish enough to leave the sidewalk. If cornered, a cat would hiss and arch its back and try to pull some dirty trick. Usually, this involved appealing to the humans walking along the sidewalk, especially the little humans, about whom the big humans were very defensive. Tito and Yukka agreed that involving the humans was against the rules and they would never stoop so low. It just went to show you how dirty and rotten and scummy cats were, that they’d enlist the humans in their cause. Just when it looked like the game was up for one of them, they’d detonate the nuclear option, and next thing you’d know four little humans would be petting the cat and two would be eyeing Tito and Yukka as if sizing them up to see how mean they really were. Pretty soon after that, the big humans would be along, just in case Tito or Yukka looked like they really might be mean.
The big humans didn’t seem to mind it if you barked at them or snarled and told them to go away. If they saw you try to scare one of the little humans, though, you’d be lucky if they didn’t get a gun.
Tito had taught Yukka early about guns. There was a range near the home and he’d brought little Yukka over there to explain how it worked. One end of the stick carried death and the sound of thunder. If a human pointed that end at you, you better run. You couldn’t outrun death, but if you heard the thunder that was okay, because if you had been dead already you wouldn’t have heard it.
In the evenings, Tito and Yukka sat by the fire, while their owner smoked and his wife busied herself about the kitchen. The old man didn’t hunt much these days, but once or twice a year he would take them out into the woods with a gun to hunt birds. Yukka preferred hunting squirrels in the yard, because he was paranoid he would get between a deer and the business end of the gun, but he still enjoyed these bird hunts.
In the mornings, Tito liked to take a nap in the sun which came through one of the east windows and Yukka would join him. It was always the same time every day, and Yukka didn’t know why, but he knew it was important. His father told him that his grandfather and his great-grandfather had napped at the same hour every day except for when there was a hunt or something going on, and that if it was good enough for them, it was good enough for him. Yukka knew there must have been a good reason if they’d kept doing it, so he swore up and down that when Tito passed on to the Great Hunt in the Sky, he’d keep the tradition alive.
In the winter, they didn’t go out as much, but when springtime rolled around, Tito made sure they got outside for six hours every day, “to shake the lethargy off.” Usually, there were other dogs to fight with, or cats to chase, or squirrels to eat, but when there weren’t, they would run around anyway, because Tito said that if a dog sat around all winter and didn’t run around all spring, he’d grow fat.
It was one day like this in April when there weren’t any other animals around and Tito and Yukka were chasing their own tails that a small human wandered into their yard. The small human looked lost. He – for it was almost always a he, the small female humans somehow less inclined to torment dogs – tried to pull Yukka’s small tail. Yukka yelped and tried to bite the small human, who was between two and three feet tall. Luckily, Tito intervened, stepping between Yukka and this small human.
“Careful,” he said. “You know what the big humans do to dogs such as bite their offspring.”
“He tried to pull my tail,” said Yukka.
“Yes, but he is a small human,” said Tito, “you know, dumb. He don’t know any better.”
“It hurt!”
“Well, it’ll hurt more if the big man comes out here and kicks you, which he will if you bite this small human.”
“It isn’t fair. I didn’t do anything to this small human and he pulls my tail and I try to defend myself and I get kicked.”
“Life ain’t fair, son. The human is the top predator in these parts, and for that matter in any parts I’ve ever heard of. Wouldn’t be surprised if they was the top predator in all the world. Ain’t no animal messes with them and lives. ‘Specially not an animal that messes with their young.”
Yukka was still upset about this, but the small human had already wandered away, no doubt to pick his nose. Tito decided to take his son on a short walk to explain to him the way of the world.
“Son,” he said. “Most dogs don’t live half so well as us. You an’ me, we got it made. Our human is pretty set as humans go, and so we get to live indoors where it’s warm in the winter and cool in the summer, and we don’t have to work unless we want to and we get good food and nobody asks much of us. Most dogs don’t live that way.
Moreover, most animals in this world don’t live half so well as a dog lives. A dog may not be the top predator, but our ancestors learned long ago that the way to make it in this world was to be friends with the top predator. All we really have to do is defend ‘em from threats and sometimes do some work and the humans will feed us every day and give us a bed to sleep in.
That’s what I call civilization. You an’ me may be a little rough around the edges, but we still partake in this here thing called civilization, which is about good breeding and good living and about upholding what is right and true and just. It would be about good manners, too, but you and me don’t have no manners, so your mother has to supply all of the manners and she just about puts up with the two of us. And you bet you’re lucky she does too. That’s another thing about civilization. If it wasn’t for mothers, it wouldn’t exist. Rough dogs like you and me would live in the woods and do what we wanted and there wouldn’t be any thought to tomorrow nor any day after that. We’d just hunt and roll in the mud and sleep in the day and howl at the moon and generally have a grand time, but it wouldn’t be no different than a wolf and a wolf ain’t civilized.”
Yukka remembered something his father had said many years ago.
“Civilization?” he asked. “Isn’t that about fire?”
“Yes,” said his father. “The fire. The fire was what first brought the wolf to the man. The wolf was curious and he stepped inside the light and the other wolves stayed back. And they stayed wolves, but the man took this curious wolf and he made him into the first dog. And all dogs are descended from the first dog and all dogs are drawn to the fire and the fire is what sets apart the man from the other animals in this world, and it’s what sets dogs apart, too.”
Yukka had only seen fires in the fireplace on very cold winter nights when their humans decided to light one, but he knew that the fire was a very ancient thing and that there had been a time before houses when humans lived in the woods with dogs and hunted with sticks. His father had told him that there was a time when the fire was all the human really had in all the world, and he was very poor, but then he made the first dog and after that, he was well on his way to civilization.
“It was the dog found the human as much as the human found the dog,” Tito told him. “And it was the dog made civilization as much as the human.”
“But I thought you said if it wasn’t for mother we would be living in the woods howling at the moon and rolling in the mud,” Yukka said, aware that he and his father did occasionally howl at the moon and roll in the mud.
Tito lowered his voice. “Well,” he said. “Same thing is true for the humans, too. You know the men? They’d be just as content to live in the woods and forget the houses as you or me. If it wasn’t for the small humans and the women, they’d still be living in the woods with us. They’d probably even howl at the moon, too, and even roll in the mud.”
Yukka thought about this. “Well,” he said. “Why don’t we?”
“Why don’t we what?”
“Go back to living in the woods and rolling in the mud and howling at the moon?”
“Because,” said Tito very solemnly, “the house is something to be proud of. It’s not every dog gets to live in a house.”
“I thought you said houses made us soft,” said Yukka. “Our paws grow soft and our minds grow unused to the cold wind of winter and the hot wind of summer?”
“Ah,” said Tito. “Yes. I did say that. Well, that is why every spring we have to go back outside for six hours every day to run around and make sure we don’t get soft from indoor living.”
Yukka nodded.
“I think that make sense,” he said.
“Good,” said Tito.
“So why did the little human pull my tail?” asked Yukka.
“Because he is little, and that is what little humans do. They don’t know any better. You remember you tried to bite a human once when you were very small and I had to cuff you around the ears,” asked Tito.
“No,” said Yukka, who didn’t.
“Well, you did,” said Tito. “And you’re lucky you had me around to set you straight.”
Yukka thought about this for a while. “Why,” he finally said, “Does it take so long for little humans to get big? A dog isn’t a puppy anymore after five years, but the little humans are little forever.”
“The ways of the human are inscrutable to the likes of us dogs,” said Tito, who was growing tired of this conversation, which was running dangerously close to questions for which he had no answer.
“Well, then, why…”
But Tito was already cutting him off. “You have much to learn, young dog,” he said. “Have patience. I can’t answer everything today.”
“Why not?” asked Yukka.
This irritated Tito, and he replied, “Because then I wouldn’t have anything to tell you tomorrow.”
Finally, satisfied, Yukka fell in behind his father and they trotted out to the fence to mark their territory, as they had every day for the last several months, ever since his father had last decided that they needed to change the marking pattern.