Ah, Charlie! Ah, Caninity!

Not very funny, Mr. Stein. At the risk of sounding overly politically correct, it isn’t such a swell thing to say you hate someone even in jest, as you did in your column “I hate dog owners.” First, let me state that I am the very sort of dog “owner” you describe. My wife and I refer to ourselves as our dog’s mommy and daddy. We kiss him full on the lips, and we talk endlessly about him to anyone unfortunate enough to come in earshot. We have [declined to have Charlie neutered so that he can experience his own masculinity. And I was not amused by your article.

As a son of the South, I was tempted to challenge you to pistols at dawn. But I remembered my tremors. I once missed a two-gallon cider jug at 10 paces with a .410. Instead I will try to give you some insight about dog people. I will explain to you the dog’s role in Southern culture, the shared humanity of dogs and the majestic intrinsic value of dogs.

Southerners are, as a lot, a fatalistic bunch. For some reason, they got it into their heads that at any moment God might come and wash it all away. One moment you might be riding high, the object of admiration and envy, then you find out that White House intern kept the dress, or you lead the country into one of the worst military disasters in history. Suddenly old friends seem to be away from the phone whenever you call. Invitations to social events seem to get lost in the mail. And even family members suggest that coming to family functions might be too stressful (they are thinking only of you). But your dog is still by your side. Your wife may have gotten the house in the divorce settlement and you may be living out of your truck, but your dog will still be anxious to ride shotgun. For Southern men who know that they are too unrepentantly wicked for heaven (that is, the vast majority), the solace of their loyal dog is the only faith they have.

Charlie is a service dog. That means he accompanies me everywhere I go. I have never felt so complete. Our relationship is based on so much more than the mere tricks he performs to aid me. He and I form a symbiotic unit. As Temple Grandin explains in ““Animals in Translation”” dogs and men co-domesticated each other. For hundreds of thousands of years dog and man evolved not separately but as single unit. Charlie is a vibrant part of my humanity.

While Charlie is definitely part of my humanity, I am also part of his caninity. While we like to think of love and morality as human or divine inventions, they, like all emotional behaviors, occur deep within the most primitive parts of our brains. If animals don’t experience emotions as we do, it’s not for lack of brain power. In fact, rather than dogs aping our emotions, we may be aping theirs. As Grandin pointed out, complex social hierarchy and non-kinship male friendships are found in dog and wolf packs, but not in nonhuman primates. To put it in terms a Los Angeles media dude could understand, without dogs there would be no buddy movies.

Because we have no children, and may never have children, I sometimes look at Charlie and wonder if I would change him into a human boy if I could. In the end I wouldn’t do it, because being a dog is good in itself. Dogs have patiently herded us humans from thoughtless selfishness to fraternity and love.

This having been said, I am not crazy, at least not concerning my feelings for Charlie. I know he is different. I think nothing less of my friend who practiced vivisection on dogs as part of her medical training. Though we are vegetarians, we feed Charlie meat because he is a carnivore.

Robert Hotchkiss is a computer science student in San Diego.

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