Almost 4 years ago, we decided to get a dog. We’d been promising my daughter for a couple of years that as soon as we moved into a house that would allow pets - and had an actual yard - we’d make it happen. And it was time to make good. Living in Oakland, CA and not having a down payment matching the gross domestic product of Luxembourg, we’d been renting since I moved here in 2007. Of course, knowing what I now know about the houses in this town - not to mention the city’s pre-historic infrastructure - I don’t think we’re missing home ownership much.
I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about getting a dog, having owned one in a previous life. But a promise is a promise. However, that promise did not come without conditions. I had two restrictions: No chihuahuas and no cats. My reasoning was simple. Too many cats I’ve known have tried to kill me. And chihuahuas are just slightly more reputable rats begging to be stepped on (accidentally) while I’m trying to take out the garbage. Luckily, my family was on board. So, armed with that in mind, we went ‘adopting’ at the Family Dog Rescue - Don’t shop, adopt.
It’s always best to get a pet that fits with you and your family’s personality and speed. We were looking for a nice small mutt that didn’t require multiple long walks every day, runs in the park, and constant attention. ‘High energy’ is not a phrase that’s used much in this household. It carries with it a lot of expectations. And as we all know, expectations just lead to disappointment. So we were excited when the rescue told us about Cali. She’s of a mix of breeds that like to have fun but chill well. Once we got there, the volunteers led us out to the pet pen where dozens of wonderful, rambunctious canines of all shapes and sizes happily pranced and played. All except one. A brown dachshund/beagle mix lying in the sun, passed out like Seis de Mayo at a fraternity house. Before the staff could even point her out, I turned to my daughter and said “Well…I think that’s our dog.”
Once we got her home, there was definitely a ‘getting to know each other’ phase. Cali took a while to warm up. She’d been shipped back and forth between potential adopters and the rescue more than once. I can only imagine how she felt getting the “Oh my god! Look at this adorable little girl, we’re going to love her FOREVAA” greeting only to be followed a few weeks later by the classic “I can’t handle this mutt, take her back” switcheroo. Frankly, most people aren’t cut out to be dog owners. Let’s be honest here, most people aren’t cut out to own a houseplant (pardon the digression).
Cali bonded with my wife first, and she would get anxious and unhappy when the other would leave the house. This was back in the primordial days of the pre-Pandemic. Before people figured out how the internet worked so everybody had to go to an office to waste time on Facebook and Instagram instead of just doing it from home. Barbaric. But as time went by, Cali got used to all of us. She was closest to the matriarch for a long time, but now we’re all more or less on equal footing.
We didn’t come up with the name ‘Cali’. Her foster parent did. But the name stuck. It was probably for the best anyway. I quickly realized that consistency with this young lady was very important. And not just because she’d already had a hard life. It turns out that Cali is, quite possibly, the dumbest dog I’ve ever known.
Our goal is one nice long(ish) walk a day. She doesn’t really need more than that. It doesn’t always work out due to rain or work or…me. But when we do find that magical time, usually in the late afternoon, she’s always ready. Or so one would think. Just before we take Cali for the walk, we pull out her leash and harness. She knows what this means and gets - understandably - excited; jumping and whining and displaying a general impatience, eager for what’s to come. The problem is that when we approach her with the harness, she then either runs away from it or spins around in circles instead of letting us put it on her. So, it often takes considerable effort just to get her into a position to do the thing she really wants to do. Once outside, she will invariably search for objects on the ground to consume. One of her favorite delicacies, which we strongly discourage, is dried cat poop. I’ve tried to divine why this is a thing but I can’t fathom it. Perhaps she’s treading in the footsteps of the old Aztecs, who consumed the hearts of their enemies. In her own odd way, she’s giving a defiant middle claw to the natural adversaries of all canine kind. But I can imagine, much like the Aztecs’ enemies must have said to them, every cat in the neighborhood telling my dog to ‘eat shit’ and her being just dumb enough to do it.
Cali’s talent for forgetting what just happened moments earlier borders on the paranormal. Our adult son stayed in our guest room while working as a teacher. Cali spent nearly nine months not remembering he lived with us. Every time he’d exit the bathroom off the kitchen she’d lose it. She thought he was an intruder who’d been hiding in the kitchen…for an entire school year. It wasn’t until he was ready to move out that she finally began to accept his existence as a (potential) member of the house. When we leave to go out we put her in her crate by coaxing her with treats. When we return and release her from the crate, she’s so elated to see us, so overwhelmed with emotion, that I can only assume she thinks we’ve liberated her from the evil people that caged her in the first place. Which she can’t remember…is us.
She’s also afraid of just about everything. For example, here is a brief list of things that frighten her:
Loud noises
Fireworks
Sudden movements
The threat of sudden movements
Turning left
Loose leaf paper
Extra sharp cheddar cheese
To be fair, some dogs come by it honestly. Before being punted between the rescue, potential adopters, and a couple of delusional, would-be dog owners, Cali was found on the street. She was already pregnant at about a year old. I had no idea dogs could be fertile quite that early (That’s what ‘abstinence only’ sex ed will get you, brother).
Despite all this, Cali has talents (or maybe skills) that I’d never imagined until I started to pay attention. At potty time, she’ll routinely walk to the same 3’ x 4’ patch of grass between the sidewalk and our street. She’ll probe it by circling the perimeter about a dozen times, smelling every square inch of ground. It’s a ponderous affair. But just when I’ve started to think that she’s lost the thread and forgotten the reason we went outside in the first place, she takes a dump. I often imagine Sir David Attenborough narrating this activity:
It is here, on this…12 square feet of the urban savannah, that the wild dachshund mutt must toil. It is a labor she begins anew every day. It will not be an easy task, but instinct demands she undertake it; her ongoing quest for the worlds most perfect…toilet.
It used to really harsh my calm, but now I know why she does it. She’s conserving the land. Taking care of business in the same area each time, all based on scent. For as stone stupid as she may seem, Cali is actually a brilliant scientist. She understands the world in a way that we humans never will. Dogs can smell 1,000 to 10,000 times better than humans. And Cali, having a longer snout, is one of the best. She will smell absolutely anything regardless of how fair or foul, without passion or prejudice. I’ve seen her snort the noxious fumes of a sewer backup, consider their meaning, and go back for more. What smells like the aftermath of the Angel of Death going scorched earth on platter of deviled eggs at a Presbyterian coffee hour, she just takes in stride. It’s simply her way of collecting information.
Dogs can use their incredible shnozzes to evaluate social situations in a matter of seconds.
With a single sniff, noses interpret an entire story without words by using amines and acids emitted by dogs as the basis for chemical communication. By simply smelling, a dog can determine if a new friend is male or female, happy or aggressive, healthy or ill. Dogs get a general idea about each other with a quick sniff, but get more detailed information by getting up close and personal. That is why some dogs sniff private parts of the anatomy!
Imagine if we could better understand human psychology just by licking each other’s faces. Think of the possibilities! Give it a try sometime and let me know your results in the comment section.
But it goes so much farther than that. Dogs like Cali can effectively smell the passage of time. They learn scents and can tell how long it’s been since an object or person has been in a particular place. Given enough olfactory information, they can predict when that object or person will come back. According to an NPR article from December 2022:
That precision also enables dogs to follow scents through space when tracking down missing people, says cognitive scientist Lucia Lazarowski.
"Tracking and trailing dogs are probably using the intensity of odors, based on how old the odor is, to determine the direction of a track or a trail," she says.
…So even when dogs are keeping track of physical space, they're also tracking time (or vice versa). And in a way, for dogs, time is inextricably woven into space. Which, if you think about, is reminiscent of the way physicists describe and think about time and space: that is, two inseparable ideas combined in one four-dimensional continuum.
So Cali is not just a scientist, but a physicist. And, relatively speaking, a damn good one. To her, every smell is just more data. And she treats it as sacred. She will never omit or fudge any of it. She can’t be bought of convinced to ignore it. She’ll never use her skills to support any particular industry or skew any results because of what organization is funding her. She makes logical assumptions based on the facts; Incorruptible, non-fungible facts. Few, if any, human scientists can say that. And that’s what makes my stupid dog so brilliant. I don’t suppose MIT or Stanford will come calling soon. But maybe they should. Now, if I can only get her to stop eating cat poop.
Photo Credit: Top Dog Tips
You're from Oakland too? Can't say I miss the place much.
This is fantastic.