What Dogs Need (Clark)

Snow licks my hand and looks at me imploringly, reminding me that he is there. I couldn’t possibly forget. Snow, a half-blind, partially deaf, passive-aggressive fourteen- year-old pitbull/boxer mix curmudgeon has been at my house 32 times since May.  This isn’t 32 days, but 32 collections of days. To put it much more clearly, he has missed only a handful of days in five months. I’ve seen him more than his parents have.

This is not normal in the job I’ve held for nearly five years, and it is one of the changes I’ve seen since the pandemic began.

I’m an essential employee, a front line worker. One client insisted his was the more onerous job: “Sure, you’re a teacher, but at least you get to be online.”  “No," I said, “I’m referring to my work as a petsitter.”

Snow’s dad is a cop, and because of the pandemic and necessary social unrest, and because his wife is an emergency room doctor in a severely virus-stricken city, I take care of Snow. I’ve also seen an uptick in reservations from my nursing clients, old and new.  I lost a lot of customers who now work from home, but they’ve been replaced by a variety of first-line folks: a veterinary surgeon, a minister, an IT specialist, a bartender, a doctor’s assistant, a dentist.  

We are to believe that dogs are thrilled with the pandemic because in many cases their humans are home. I think this is true, but I’ve noticed there is something about the dogs that makes it clear they need a break. We think it's just people, but dogs need to be with their own kind sometimes. In the Before Times, dogs would show up to my house like it’s Day Camp and would spend the day or week roughhousing like crazy. Now I find the first night is indeed frenetic, non-stop action. But then, the second day, there is a sense of relaxation. There is still play, but it is measured. They feel as though they can breathe. They play for half an hour, rest, play, rest, and so on. They sleep through the night. The third day, a few of them are almost comatose, as if the play time on the first day overstrained them. (Most dogs come for three days.) This change from Before Times makes a lot of sense to me. I think the second and third day the dogs are thinking, my pack is still here; nobody has left; this is cool.

I don’t know if it is my imagination, but I think the dogs are becoming more affectionate. They certainly are becoming more so to me—lots more kisses and wanting me to kneel down so they can breathe in my breath. They want more attention from me (as do my students, by the way) and are more concerned about where I am and being with me.

Think about it from the dog’s perspective: dogs are incredibly empathetic. They study our body language and pick up on all sorts of cues. They don’t understand about the virus (probably) but they certainly get that something’s changed. Most people are stressed out, not only by the pandemic and all the things resulting from it: job changes and relationship challenges, but also the horrendous political situation and stressors. Dogs pick up on stress and emotions. Being at my house, where I live by myself surrounded by dogs and cats, provides a sense of stability. Dear God, I’m not suggesting that I’m stable, (my friends would find that amusing) but my home, especially for old clients, is a familiar place, and other dogs are a distraction and a comfort.

I’ve noticed a change not just in the dogs, but in my clients as well.  I tend to really like dog and cat people, and in general, I really like my clients. Since the pandemic, though, people have been even kinder than usual.

 When the pandemic first started, “Sam,” the father of a pitbull named Barkley that I took care of for several weeks, texted me once a week for two months just checking in to see that I was all right. He’s a kid in his forties, and I’m nearing sixty, so it is possible he thought I had one foot in the grave anyway, but I thought this was considerate. Morti the Corgi’s dad, a welder/construction worker, presented me with a bag of toilet paper rolls. Morti’s mom is a nurse, so because he has two parents who are essential, he, like Snow, has been with me every week since the pandemic began, visiting one to five days a week. People have brought donuts (always a good move), given me larger than usual tips (perhaps an even better move), and written incredibly kind reviews.

My job is dangerous. Not in the way you’d think, like maybe I’ll get bitten (I have—three times now) or have to deal with strange clients (that as well), but rather because of the virus. I regularly enter the homes of my clients in order to walk their dogs. Over July 4th week, I was making six house visits a day, and each time would use an elevator. My clients insist on being on the fourth or higher floor, but no way was I running up eight flights of stairs every visit hauling my pandemic-related weight gain.

The elevator is probably the worst place to be in an apartment building during the plague. I do wear a mask, and I try to remember to use wipes for pressing buttons, but I’m not a detail person. I figure I’m really lucky not to have been contaminated yet. And of course, most of the clients whose homes I visit are the first-line people, so if I’m going to get infected…

All this being said, I’m grateful for my job. I’m grateful to be working with dogs, and even happy to see Snow on a nearly daily basis. I am glad to be helping people who are doing God’s work saving us from ourselves and our bad/stupid decisions (I’m thinking anti-maskers here). It is my little part I can play in helping those who are most at risk. Add to that that dogs are fuzzy, silly, warm when it gets cold, ridiculous, mostly wonderful creatures. I guess I love my job, which is good at a time of crisis.

Katherine Clark got her PhD from CWRU. She teaches at John Carroll University and is a petsitter for Rover.com. Clark is in the top 10% in Ohio and probably the world. She is on the fourth draft of her novel, and it is likely to be an international best seller.