A Dog’s View of the Civil War

Today (April 12, 2011) is the 150th Anniversary of the attack on Fort Sumpter and the start of the American Civil War.  Most of the dogs I walk are history buffs, and I won’t be a bit surprised to find them waiting for me with capes and long goatees and muskets, or in hoop skirts and bonnets; whatever their inclination.  We won’t walk so much as march or promenade, and instead of picking up the poop I’ll just leave it all like little brown flags to declare our conquered territory.  I’d rather not stage any battles though, just for the sake of time.  Some of the multi-dog homes I visit already have regular reenactments, albeit with certain creative canine twists such as the biting of ears instead of the firing of muskets, and mutual leg gnawing in the place of cavalry charges.  This is to be discouraged, anniversary or no.  Though playing dead is always fine, especially since it’s a trick that human Civil War re-enactors are notoriously reluctant to perform.

It’s actually interesting to look at the Civil War through a dog’s eyes.  Dogs are the embodiment of that kind of unquestioned loyalty which we humans alternately admire and lament, depending on whether we encounter it in forces for or against us.  Forces like armies.  You could no more convince Hachiko, the Akita that waited for 9 years (until his death) for his dead master to arrive at the Tokyo train station, to give it a rest and go play fetch or something, than you could have convinced the Army of Northern Virginia to stop fighting in 1862 and just let the Yankees roll through Dixie.  Though if you could have done the latter, you would have saved this country a lot of trouble.  So thanks for nothing.

Someone who strives for something against all odds and good sense is exhibiting a kind of determination we call ‘dogged.’ With dogs, the great tidal force that pulls them (other than pure hedonism) is loyalty.  It motivates them to sit and wag and bark at noises in the night, just as it motivated Robert E. Lee to refuse Lincoln’s offer of command of the entire Union army, and become the leader of his state’s militia instead.  Lee didn’t support succession and didn’t much care for slavery, but his loyalties were fixed for him from his Southern birth, as was his aristocratic sense of honor, which in turn bound him to his loyalties so firmly that he doggedly fought for what he likely knew to be a lost cause.  He even kind of looked like a Bearded Sheep Dog.

My mom lives with a Black Lab and a German Shorthaired Pointer.  They’re my dogs in other words, though I left home and they didn’t.  She said once that it’s funny to think that, had they been raised by different people, they would love them as much as they now love her.  I was offended by this on the dog’s behalf.  They are our dogs and could never be happy with anyone else.  Even if we never met them, they would sit and heave great sad doggy sighs and long for something they couldn’t quite imagine (my family and I), just as we would pine away, vaguely missing something we never had.  At least that’s what I like to think.  In reality my mom is probably right:  their doggy love and loyalty is totally circumstantial, and completely non-transferable.  This doesn’t cheapen a dog’s loyalty, but on the contrary makes it all the more miraculous:  they don’t judge, they don’t hold out for something better, and they would never dream of seceding from any family. This is what makes abuse of dogs so horrible, because it is exclusively one-sided.  The dogs are doing the best they can in every case, and any mistreatment is a cruel betrayal of some of the most pristine, crystalline loyalties in the world.

My mom jokes that though the dogs make big noise when anyone approaches the house (including the mail carrier), they are too nice to really be very protective.  Though they make her feel a little safer when home alone, she says, it would really only take a burglar armed with a couple dog treats to totally deactivate the furry security system.  I totally disagree.  I know they are both very sweet and loving dogs, but I’m also sure that either one would lay down their life to protect her.  Even if General Sherman were marching through the living room, they would unthinkingly form a firing-line behind the sofa to guard their human’s flank.  If the German Shorthair did (or could–he’s not very bright) stop to think about it, he might reconsider.  But he never would.  We humans do enough philosophizing, prevaricating and rationalizing for all the animals in the world.  Dogs are great because they aren’t mixed up by any of that.  They’re just dogged.

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