A canine bladder is a small thought-bubble-shaped sac safely embedded near the dog’s hind quarters. Its only purpose is to store urine until the sac is full, and then alert the dog that he needs to empty it. (It would be nice if there were a system wherein something else, say a garbage can, would alert a local teen-ager that he needs to empty it. Although the chances of the teen-ager actually reacting to the alert are about as good as the Beatles making a comeback as Rap artists. Or someone with the middle name of Hussein being elected president. Oh wait, that happened.)
The sacs can hold different volumes, depending on the size and personality of the dog. My dog, a Bichon Frise, is a wonderful animal, a companion, a friend, a joy. But small, and with a disproportionally small bladder. He is an inside dog, generally content to sit at my picture window and enjoy the world vicariously. So, going out to pee is a change in his routine, a little ginger to clear his mental palate, and one which he covets. Left to his own devices, he can pee ten times in two minutes. Unless it’s cold and I am waiting outside for him. In that case he pees two times in ten minutes. Temperatures below freezing seem to have an effect on his ability to hear me call him, as well.
And his bladder seems to have established some kind of psychic connection with my musculo-skeletal system. The alert that I mentioned before, the one that tells him he needs to go out and empty, only works when I am sitting down. If I happen to be standing, or walking, it is completely inactive. But let me sit for a few minutes, and bladder central triggers that little doggie klaxon horn, and he shifts into stare mode. This psychic connection seems be both unique to me, and also to stream in only one direction. He pays no attention whatever to any of the other occupants of my house, and, when I have to pee, it doesn’t seem to matter what his posture happens to be.
The “stare” mode, which also seems to be unique to our relationship, is his method of communication, probably developed over eons of dog-human relations. Ice age canines would come close to the fire and stare at their human companion until he threw him some meat. Or chased him away with a stick. The going outside to pee thing was not an issue at the time, as caves generally did not have storm doors. Over the millennia, “the stare” has come to mean ‘I need to pee’, ‘I need to eat’, ‘I’m bored’, and ‘why do we have a cat?’. And he is capable of conveying each of these messages with enviable clarity. Most conversation between humans is filled with “what?” and “I don’t understand what you mean”, and even “you’re full of it”, but not so with human-dog communication. I get it. I always get it. I’m sitting, he stares, I need to get up and let him out. I get it.
So, the question that many dog owners ask themselves, “exactly who trained who, here”, is not even worth discussing at this point. Max, or Maxwell, or Maximum Dog as I call him, is clearly the one with a whip and a chair, and I am the toothless lion patiently waiting for instructions.
The only question that still remains is, why me? In a house full of physically, intellectually and emotionally capable adults, why is there only one at whom he focuses all his powers of persuasion?
Learn the answer to that, and I can consider myself wise.
The Canny Curmudgeon 