Dog Is Love: Why and How Your Dog Loves You

RECENTLY I TOOK some time away from my adopted country, the United States, to visit my native England. It was wintertime, late afternoon, and the sun had already finished its short duty for the day. Along with thousands of others returning home from their day’s work in the city, I was coming down the steps at a train station in the outer suburbs of London. These Victorian stations must have looked grand when they were built, and some of them still do in summer light, but at the end of a cold, dank day like this one, they are distinctly depressing: the old, dark red bricks illuminated only by dim and flickering fluorescent lights, the whole triumphant setting infused with the miserable mood of the weary commuter. 

  

As if the scene were not dismal enough, suddenly the station rang out with the urgent barks of a dog. Down at the bottom of the steps, just behind the barriers that prevent people from getting on the trains without a ticket, a young woman—a child, really—was holding on with all her might to one end of a leash. Its other end held a small but noisy and highly energetic dog, most likely a terrier of some kind. This little dog was yapping up a considerable storm. 

  

My immediate unconscious reaction was irritation: an annoying soundtrack had been added to an already gloomy scene. But as I got closer and saw how happy this dog was, an involuntary smile crept across my face. 

  

The dog had recognized somebody in the great human crowd. As that person got closer, the dog’s barking morphed from an angry snapping into a sort of happy, almost-howling cry. Her claws skidded over the smooth floor as she struggled to get to her human. When the man was through the ticket barrier, the dog jumped up into his arms and kissed his face. I was only a little way behind and heard the man cooing to the dog to calm her down: “It’s OK, it’s OK—I’m back now.” 

  

Looking around, I saw the whole sea of human faces mirroring my own emotional reaction. First irritation—another tedious burden added to the tired tail end of the day—then involuntary happiness at the dog’s love for his master. Smiles spread across the crowd; here and there, gentle laughter followed. People who were traveling with companions exchanged nudges and a few words. The majority of solo travelers tucked their smiles back into their pockets, but a light spring in their steps remained as a reminder of the unexpected small pleasure they had experienced at the station on their way home. 

  

As I took in this happy scene, I was transported in memory to one of my first trips back to the UK after I had first left its shores over thirty years ago. Back then, our family dog, Benji, was still alive. My mother drove to the train station on the Isle of Wight, where I grew up, to collect me, with Benji sitting up alert on the front passenger seat. Since people in the UK drive on the left side of the street, in British cars the positions of driver and front passenger are reversed, compared to those in the United States. This meant that, to my tired and jetlagged eyes, accustomed to seeing drivers where now Benji sat, my dog appeared to be driving the car. My confusion barely had time to register when the car pulled up at the curb, and I opened the passenger door to meet Benji’s paroxysm of joy at seeing me again. As soon as he saw me, Benji went crazy with pleasure, just like the terrier at the train station many years later—and just like me, although I kept my emotions under tighter control. 

  

At first glance, Benji may not have seemed particularly special; he was just a fairly small black-and-tan shelter mutt. But he was very special to us. Dabs of sandy-brown color around his eyebrows made his eyes especially expressive—particularly when he was puzzled. We loved teasing him, and he seemed to take all our pranking in good spirit. He could prick up his ears to show curiosity. With his tail he could express happiness and confidence, and he showed his affection with licks from his tongue (which felt like wet sandpaper and elicited protests from my brothers and me, although we felt honored by his attention). 

  

Benji, my brothers, and I all grew up together in the 1970s on the Isle of Wight, off the south coast of England. When my younger brother and I came home from school, we usually would plunk ourselves down on the sofa, whereupon we would hear and then see Benji racing in from the back garden.