Domestication of the dog

I have just turned in the work that I was doing, so it's time to start paying attention to my poor old dog again.

When I first got Freddie, a friend was telling me about his determination to find a wife. He's a man in his early thirties and I suppose he considers it about time that he established a house and did his bit for the family line or something. Anyway, he accused me of in some way neglecting my duty to society by giving up on women in favour of this pup of mine. While it is flattering to think that what the country really needs in these difficult times is more of my genetic material in it, my immediate response was to scoff at my friend's rebuke, but maybe he had a point.

For a start, apart from various misguided mortgages and things, my domestic arrangement with my dog is the single biggest and longest-term commitment I have ever made. All going well, little Fred will live for another fifteen years or so and in the meantime I am responsible for him every day of his life. That's longer than a lot of marriages. Also, since I live alone, the dog is the thing I come home to. Walking him is the single constant in my daily routine, holidays if I have them have to be planned around him. We spend a lot of time together. We are in a sort of honeymoon period, granted, but we seem to have found a natural working rhythm to our days.

So does this mean I am married to my dog? I don't think so, but it is amazing how much sustenance the animal gives me and maybe it's not total nonsense to suggest that since I have a seemingly limitless supply of affection and hassle at home, I am less motivated to go out and wive. (And can we please, just for the moment, for once, leave the subject of sex out of this? Can we agree on that? Thank you.)

Hmm, reading back over that I do sound like some kind of cynical misogynist, which I hope I am not, but perhaps it does suggest a different model for my domestic arrangement. Rather than a marriage maybe what we have going on here is one of those old-fashioned households where two old bachelors sit and smoke pipes in the nineteenth century. Certainly Freddie is a confirmed bachelor, as in confirmed surgically.

The other way of looking at my relationship with this dog is as some kind of child-parent thing (this is the view propounded by a married friend, as yet with no kids). I can see the justness of the comparison, but I don't think it accords either of us much credit. Besides, the little savage would chew the nipples off me.