Big Dogs

I have a theory about women who have big dogs in cities. I don’t have any evidence for it. I haven’t conducted a study. And I would probably never say some of what I think about this subject out loud because people are extremely sensitive about their dogs. But I think there is something psychologically different about a woman who looks at a Labrador and thinks: Yes. That’s the dog I want in my apartment.

She knows what she’s agreeing to. There are no wee-wee pads. There is no putting the dog in a tote bag because it’s raining. A Labrador doesn’t care that it is February, that you have just washed your hair, or that you have privately decided not to participate in society today. The Labrador needs to go outside. And still, she wants the Labrador.

I understand this woman because I am this woman.

My dog is Lexa, a black Labrador who was trained by Guiding Eyes for the Blind. She was eventually released from the program, which is how she became mine. She goes almost everywhere with me. Lexa was supposed to have a job. She was trained to guide someone through the world, and although that isn’t what she ultimately became, sometimes I think she does a version of it anyway. She gets me out of the apartment. She makes me look up. She introduces me to people I would never otherwise meet. She has no idea she is doing any of this. She is usually just looking for someone who might have a treat.

Lexa is one of the friendliest creatures I have ever known. She approaches the world with an optimism I do not personally possess. Everyone is potentially wonderful. Every child should be greeted. Every doorman is a friend. Every person sitting on a bench has presumably been waiting for her. This arrangement works very well for us. I can be private. Lexa cannot.

When we walk together, people talk to me. Children ask if they can pet her. People tell me about the Labrador they had growing up. Doormen know her name. There are people in my neighborhood who may know nothing about me except that I belong to Lexa. There are people I pass regularly who started by saying hello to her and eventually began saying hello to me. This is how many of my neighborhood relationships work. Lexa handles the introductions; I become involved later. I love this.

A big friendly dog makes a city less anonymous. Cities are strange this way. You can live among millions of people and become extraordinarily good at avoiding almost all of them. You put in your headphones. You look at your phone. You stand six inches from another person in an elevator and say nothing. You can be surrounded by people all day and remain entirely inside your own life. It is difficult to do this with a Labrador. Lexa engages with the world, and when I am with her, I engage with it too.

But there is another part of this that I have only recently begun to understand. Lexa doesn’t just connect me to other people. She interrupts my relationship with my own head. Walking alone, I can cover twenty blocks without really noticing where I am. I replay conversations. I think about something that happened yesterday. I worry about something that may happen next week. I mentally answer emails that nobody has sent.

Walking Lexa requires more immediate concerns. She pushes. She pulls. She stops abruptly. She has found something fascinating near a tree. She wants to greet someone across the street. She has apparently decided we are going left when I had every intention of going right. And then there is the constant possibility that she will eat something she isn’t supposed to, which on a city sidewalk requires a level of vigilance normally reserved for toddlers. I have to pay attention.

Lexa is completely absorbed in the world in front of her, and because I am responsible for her, I become absorbed in it too. I notice the squirrel because she notices the squirrel. I see the child coming toward us because her tail has already started moving. I know something interesting has happened on this particular patch of sidewalk because she has stopped as though she has been presented with breaking news. For part of every day, I have to leave the running commentary of my own life and enter hers.

Maybe that is one of the great pleasures of having a dog. We tend to think of attention as something responsibilities take away from us. I am beginning to think there are times when having your attention taken away from yourself is an enormous relief. There is a whole world outside your own head. Lexa insists that I participate in it.

And then, eventually, we go home. There is something about the physical presence of a large dog that I find impossible to replace. The enormous head in your lap. The body leaning against your legs. The sound of paws moving from one room to another. The tail hitting the floor when you say her name. When I am home alone with Lexa, I don’t really feel alone. There is another substantial living creature in the apartment. She takes up space. A lot of it. I like that too.

And this may be what I’ve been trying to understand about women with big dogs in cities. At some point, each of us knowingly chose inconvenience. We chose the dog who cannot be carried. The dog who has to be walked when it rains. The dog who takes up half the bed, sheds on the furniture and requires us to organize parts of our lives around the fact that another living creature needs something from us several times a day. There were easier options. But maybe easier wasn’t what we were looking for.

We live in a time obsessed with convenience. Dinner arrives at the door. Groceries arrive at the door. A car appears downstairs. Almost every small inconvenience can be eliminated if you are willing to download another app. And yet some of the things that have added the most to my life have been profoundly inconvenient.

A big dog forces you into a physical relationship with your own life. You have to get dressed. You have to walk. You have to know what the weather is doing. You begin to recognize the people who occupy the same few blocks as you. You notice when the flowers appear and when the leaves disappear. You become familiar with the rhythms of a place because, whether you feel like it or not, you are outside participating in it.

The dog needs a life, and in the process of giving her one, you accidentally acquire more of one yourself.

Maybe the woman with the Labrador knows something I have been slowly figuring out. An easier life and a bigger life are not necessarily the same thing.

Some things are worth going outside in the cold for.