Our Darling Daughter

Listen, I know that Corky is not human. She’s a French Bulldog, not a child.

He loves to tell the story of her birth. No, not the actual event where she was delivered by C-section to a purebred mother owned by a Florida breeder. Keeper’s version, which gets more ridiculous with every telling, features a nurse coming out to the hospital waiting room, where he has been nervously pacing, and showing him what’s in the pink bundle in her arms.

As he tells the story, he acts it out. “Arrrgghh! It’s Rosemary’s Baby! That’s not my daughter, that’s the devil’s spawn!” He describes her bat ears, her smooshed face, her big googly eyes and sharp teeth. There is never any mention of the trauma I must have experienced in giving birth to this big-headed, furry thing with four paws.

In his story, Keeper grows to love the little dog-girl, just as he did in real life, when I brought her home unannounced and relied on her innate charm to win him over.

The only part of the story that’s mythical is her birth. She is, indeed, our daughter, and she loves to sit on Daddy’s lap and lick his face, something that Child Protective Services would probably frown on.

We are proud of her accomplishments, especially in the elimination department, which was thoroughly described in a previous column. She’s no slouch intellectually, either. She has learned to recognize key phrases, like “Is Corky hungry?” and “Want to go outside?” and “Where’s Daddy?”

We’re prouder still of her social skills. Last week at the dog park, our little girl took on the role of hostess. She ran to the fence to greet every dog as it arrived. She stood still to let them get a good sniff and then invited them to play. The ones that were willing were immediately challenged to a race and all comers were welcome. She gave the shy ones their space, making friends with their owners first to prove that she was harmless.

Corky is an enthusiastic girl, and never met a person she didn’t like, which doesn’t go over too well with humans who don’t care to be licked. But “don’t-lick-me” people are rare at the dog park, so we didn’t try to restrain her. We just watched her as she ran from new friend to new friend, only stopping to take a sip of water from my hand. (What? You didn’t think I’d let her drink from the communal bowl, did you?)

Author Jon Katz, who has written the amusingly titled “Katz on Dogs,” reminds us that “[dogs] are not ‘children with fur,’ or children at all. We may love them to death, but that doesn’t mean they’re like us.”

That’s for sure. Neither Keeper nor I are nearly as sociable as Corky. We’re tolerant, but not as instantly accepting. We’re affectionate, but not to the point where we greet each other at the door by jumping up and down. We like meeting new people, but are more likely to shake hands than jump in their laps and lick them on the lips.

That day at the dog park, as we watched our daughter enthusiastically greet newcomers as if they were her new best friend, we realized another way in which our daughter differs from us: she’s a bit fickle.  Katz offers doggie parents a dose of reality on this topic: “Your dog is crazy about you,” says the author, “but he can also learn to love almost anyone else holding a hamburger.”