Dog days of summer. Let sleeping dogs lie. Work like a dog. Three dog night. A man’s best friend. Doggone it. What is it about all these idioms that revolve around our best friends? And many of them don’t make sense. Work like a dog? They’re not exactly known for their industrious ways. Doggone it? Really when did dogs ever god damm anything. They roll with the punches Let sleeping dogs lie? Only when you’re trying to sneak around the guard dogs. Three dog night? It takes more than three to take the edge off the cold, believe me. So they’ve made their mark on our language as easy as lifting a leg. These four legged creatures that can communicate what they need with the lift of an eyebrow. They have become our teachers of living in the now and finding joy in the small things. They understand forgiveness and love like no other being on the planet. Our own Doggy Lamas.
And we have elevated these teachers to be members of the family. Dogs today have names like Sam, Trixie and Alexandra, the same names we give children. Now their stature has moved up to son and daughter. Our culture has made a celebrity out of a man who likely would have ended up lazing around in a wife-beater drinking beer, a tough jerk who bosses everyone around. Instead he is a millionaire that we revere for whispering to dogs. There’s special bacon flavored bottled water, a pet airlines. Dog hotels. Scented poop bags. Doggy ice cream trucks. How did this happen? How did they reverse the order of things to end up on top? And without us really noticing.