From Lassie to Jake the Dog, I’ve always liked the idea of person-like pup.
Ya know, someone to help me uncover the hidden treasure my Teddy Ruxpin map led to.
However, most of my IRL pets were barely capable of surviving their own lives, much less saving princesses or stealing booty or stealing booty from princesses (I was a precocious kid). Like, for instance, there was that one who liked to sleep under the wheel. Then there was the one who ran off if you threw ground-impact firework cracklers twenty feet away. And, of course, the one who I’m pretty sure had genetic rabies, stayed in his cage, and spontaneously spoke in the voice of demon Legion if you came too near it. (I really empathized with that last dog. Creature after my own heart.)
But then again, we had some real smarties. In the pre-meme era, there was this one – a doberman – who actually spent half his time riding my scooter and the other half sitting down at our Fisher Price bench table like a psychologist. If I sat on one side, he’d follow suit on the other, settle in, breathe a deep sigh, cross his paws, and narrow his focus onto me. It sounds cute, right? But actually, the kodak moment wears off when you realize the moment’s passed and there’s still an unintentionally (one hopes) anthropomorphized dog sitting opposite you, staring into your soul, and making you question all eight years of your life decisions – including that last thing you just acted out with your Barbies in the basement before coming out to play.
I’m reminded of my formative dogcologist anytime someone says “you need help”.
But help of the canine variety can come in many forms. And being silently Dr. Katz’d by a dog isn’t the only way our barking brethren can lend a loyal hound-hand. Sometime’s it’s a bit more heartwarming. Like the Siberian Lassie who pulled a f’real furry version of our classic four legged hero when she saved a little girl who was stuck out in the wilderness for 11 days.
(*Goss pause – why does everyone who gets lost in mother nature surface after exactly 11 days? My new game plan when I get lost is going to be to just set my alarm for 11 days and take a nap till then. Because that’s obvi the magic rescue number).
For a kid, this bish was actually pretty smart – drinking from streams and eating berries all Bear Grylls and shiz. Her demonstration of badassery just might have been enough for her to survive DIY style. But we’ll never know because her pup brought some game of his own – providing her warmth, companionship, guarding her from random animals, and ultimately going back to the village to summon some assistance and wrangle up a rescue team.
Part of me’s like, “dude, why’d you wait eleven days to go get help?” and the other dog-part of me (I got osmotically from all those priceless Fisher Price therapy seshes with my Doberman) would be like “OMG we’re going on a camping journey! Are we playing Get Out Alive? I love Get Out Alive! And there’s berries! And other animals have pooped here!? And… the novelty of all’a that wouldn’t wear off until a week or two when I started missing the comforting familiarity of beggin strips – the McDonald’s of dog world – on which I was raised as a wriggly runt.
The cool backstory to this is that her dad was off saving his hometown from raging fires and her mom was working to help her family survive. And that her grandma had fallen asleep when she wandered away. I feel like this is more heartwarming than if it’d happened in America, where the backstory would have gone more like “dad was riding secretary like rodeo clown while mom was on Rodeo spending his money”. So, can we all agree that “still a better love story than the girl version of Adventure Time” applies here? In the end, during our f’real excursions with furries, it’s nice to know we can count on some of them to step up to the plate and help us out – even if it’s like half a month into our dying process.
’cause two half brains are better than one whole half brain.
