What is a Dog's Life?

What is it, a dog’s life? We tend to think of our relationships with them in parental terms—there is even a rather silly fad for calling ourselves dog moms and dog dads. I tend to think that they are closer to siblings, younger brothers and sisters caught up in an unshakeable infancy, idolatrous of us, overeager, annoying and solicitous, on our heels hoping we’ll notice them and decide to play. We think of them as stupidly happy, but I think J.R. Ackerley is closer to the truth: The profundity of their love for us makes them helplessly sorrowful, which is why even in her moments of the utmost, unmediated joy, a joy that our own nervous and overactive minds makes essentially impossible, a dog’s eyes remain achingly sad. 

From “Like a Dog” by Jacob Bacharach for The New Inquiry

#dog #dogs #dogsofinstagram #puppy #puppies #pet #pets #story #stories #thestorybar