Unkindest Cut for Man’s Best Friend

On Friday, I take him for a little elective surgery, acknowledging right up front that no surgery should be elective. Either you need it or you don’t.

“This wasn’t my idea,” I explain to the dog.

“I know,” he says.

We’re standing at the pet clinic, at the front counter. On the other end of the leash is my best and quietest friend. “Lucky” is what we call him. Seemed like a good name at the time.

“Neuter, front desk,” the pet clinic clerk calls over the P.A. to the back shop. “Neuter, front desk.”

The chilling words echo through the clinic. Lucky looks at me. I look at him. It’s an awkward moment. At a time like this, only a dog would still look at you with love in his eyes. Only a dog would be forgiving of such savagery.

“This wasn’t my idea,” I tell him again.

Dogs and dads, we have a lot in common. We’re both hard to live with sometimes. We sneeze too loud and chomp our food, especially the heavy, denser meats. We breathe between bites. We slurp all liquids.

We shed, dogs and dads do. Cats make us crazy--almost psychotic--as do those recent reports that they’re cloning kittens. Kittens? Grrrrr, kittens.

Dogs and dads, we’re distant cousins really. We’ll chase a ball till we drop. If we like something, we will eat it until we become sick. Even in the best of times, our digestive tracts sound like air horns. Some of God’s better work, dogs and dads. Simple. Loyal. Strong.

“Neuter, front desk,” the pet clinic clerk calls.

“You’ll be fine,” I tell the dog.

Here’s one of those wicked twists life takes: The dog goes in for an ear infection; the vet says maybe it’s time for him to be neutered. The cocker spaniel, fresh from his 5th birthday, leaves the pet clinic with an appointment to be “fixed.” I think we can all learn from this.

“In what sense, exactly, does he get fixed?” I ask my wife after she makes the appointment.

“Pardon me?”

“Fixed,” I say. “I don’t think that’s the right word.”

For in a way, I explain, he’ll never be more broken.

“You’ll get over it,” my wife says. “Both of you.”

“Easy for you to say,” I tell my wife, obviously a woman.

And I leave Lucky there at the pet clinic, with his feet skating on the cold linoleum floor, his eyes yelling at the pet clinic worker, “Hey, there must be some mistake! You have the wrong dog! Seriously, I’m fine! I’ll use a condom!” and the pet clinic worker assuring him that they don’t make mistakes like that here, that indeed he’s the right dog. That he won’t feel a thing.

“He’ll die a virgin,” I tell my wife when I get home.

“The vet said it’d be best for him,” my wife explains.

Exactly how, I don’t remember, because I think a chronic virginity is a sad state of affairs, even for a dog.

A chaste life never did anyone much good, leaves you with a cold bed and a cold heart and an unnecessary moral pureness. Watch any of today’s more popular movies. Chastity is the devil’s work.

“My dog, he’ll die a virgin,” I complain to my friend Paul.

“You see that Laker game?” Paul asks.

See, no one cares. No one sees the bigger moral implications. This dog, I’d take a bullet for this dog.

Now, he’ll never trust me again. Lucky, my loyal friend, the only creature that would ever lick egg yolk from my mustache.

“You should change his name,” Paul says.

“To what?”

“To ‘Can’t Get Lucky.’”

A day later, the dog comes home, without a trace of bitterness. He can’t jump, for obvious reasons, and he mostly leaves the stitches alone, doesn’t chew at them, for obvious reasons.

He forgives me, mostly, but won’t go near the minivan, which he views as an accessory to the crime, an ambulance waiting to carry him back to Dr. Frankenstein’s pet clinic.

And in the evening, he rests on the couch with the older daughter and her new boyfriend, home from college for the weekend and watching TV together late into the night. The dog keeps one eye on her. One eye on him.

Always the protector, the dog is the self-appointed sentry for any funny business that might take place there on the couch. He has seen enough movies to know what goes on between America’s youth.

Not going to happen. Not on his watch. Especially after all he’s just been through. “Make a move,” he dares the boyfriend. “I dare you: Make a move.”

So how have we rewarded such loyalty? Snip. Snip. And a lot of painkillers. To think that they’re cloning cats.

“If they can clone a kitten, they’d better clone a dog,” I tell my wife.

“Maybe they could clone Brad Pitt,” says my older daughter.

“Maybe they could clone Kobe,” says the boy.

No, just my loyal dog, who sleeps on my feet as I write this, his big heart beating against my toes.

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Chris Erskine’s column is published on Wednesdays. His e-mail address is chris.erskine@latimes.com.