Dogs can be pessimists. This is what the scientists say. I don’t believe them.
Evidently Michael Mendl, a veterinary scientist at the University of Bristol, studied twenty-four shelter dogs in Britain. He would place them in a room containing a bowl that, as the dog knew from previous training, might be empty or might be full of food. Optimistic dogs raced to the bowl like a shark on a seal pod. Pessimistic pooches didn’t bother searching. Mendi also noted that the downer-dogs showed more separation anxiety, trashing furniture and floors when left alone.
Well, I’m no scientist but I do hang out with a lot of shelter dogs on a regular basis and I have my doubts. You stroll that concrete walkway between kennels crammed with canines and see what happens, especially when they notice you toting a leash. They go bonkers! Some hurl themselves at the bars like holiday shoppers on the last of the Squinkies at the local Walmart. Some start jumping; my shelter has one pitbull with a vertical leap of at least six feet and he can maintain that height over repeated jumps. Some go for the solar plexus, staring up at you with soulful eyes like Gavroche dying at the barricade in Les Miserables. And these are animals I do not walk and have never walked. I’ve strolled past them any number of times on my way to the particular mutt who is my usual companion. They have no reason to expect me to let them out, but there they are, addled with anticipation all the same.
It reminds me of something Dave Barry once wrote about dogs. Barry maintained that if you let a dog in the car, “usually the dog will sit in the driver’s seat, in case (You never know!) the dog is called upon to steer.” My dog Joey was a living demonstration of this theorem. When I opened the pickup door and waved him in, he invariably parked himself in front of the steering wheel and stared avidly forward. More impressive, when I told him to move over, he never seemed put out.
I consider it an open question whether pets go to Heaven. i’ve blogged about it elsewhere () and I come down on the side of Charles Wesley, George MacDonald and C. S. Lewis by answering in the affirmative. What I do know is this: If dogs go to Heaven, they will have no trouble obeying Christ’s many injunctions to watch and be alert for His return. A kennel full of canines who celebrate the appearance of a random human even after hundreds - thousands? - of disappointments, of not being walked, not being adopted, not being chosen will not be worn down by a couple of paltry millennia between Our Lord’s promise to return and the fulfillment of that promise.
Since Advent begins tomorrow, I want to encourage us to listen for a moment to this doggy homily. In Job, after the title character has spent the better part of thirty chapters giving God lots of good advice on running the world, the Almighty shows up in person. In Job 40.15 the Lord offers a rather strange apologetic for dealing with the problem of evil: “Check out the hippo!” (Or brontosaurus if you’re into creationism.) Well, for those of us Christians who have grown pessimistic, have stopped charging into each new day hot on the trail of experiences which may (although they may not) be brim-full with God’s blessings, I think my pals at the shelter have a sermon to preach. For those of us who have let any real anticipation of Our Lord’s Advent sink into a dull, scarcely-perceived ache at the base of our souls, I think my mutt-mentors have a message. Let’s hit the church doors like dogs who have sniffed the leash. Let’s make barking, drooling fools of ourselves. Let’s leap before the Lord on the off-chance that he might meet us halfway. And if all of that is too Charismatic for you (as, I admit, it is for me), let’s at least fix our gaze on the throne and express yearning for our redemption.
“A DOG,” to return to Dave Barry, “IS ALWAYS READY. It doesn’t matter for what: Dogs are just ready.” It’s Advent. Let’s be ready!
