The existence of dog

I always disliked dogs. My 1-year-old son lives for their wet eyes and tongue rolls.

By Elena Sigman

Mar 5, 2002 | My year-old son Isaiah senses an approaching dog the way I used to locate a sexy man in the vicinity: by shape, smell and sound. If the dog is a block away or across the street, Isaiah's little back jolts upright, his arms extend and flap, and he tries to propel himself into the air -- a dog-copter. His breath comes out in rapid sighs, eh-eh-eh. I push the stroller faster, fearful that the dog's master -- oblivious to this drama -- will steer his four-legged mate in another direction, and my son's heart will break. But no, we catch up with the dog, Isaiah leaps up, straining against the stroller's strap: "Ahhhhyyyiii!"

This instinctive attraction to dogs is the first significant way in which my child is different from me. There are many other things we do not share that might seem more important, including gender. But this strikes me as a very big difference: Isaiah loves dogs. He always has, and his love for them just keeps growing stronger.

I have never liked dogs. It's not just that I don't have a dog myself; until a year ago, I ignored them out of existence. They didn't live in the same three dimensions that I inhabited. They occupied their own dog world, a planet of poops, pooper scoopers and pooper leavers, a planet of barking and biting, endless noises and secretions.

Now, suddenly, I have a child who is a dog-lover, dog-watcher, dog-stopper, dog-dogger. Dog is on Isaiah's mind even when a dog is not in sight. He is ready, prepared at all times for an encounter. He loves to get in the stroller, tolerates the belting in and sweatering up and whatever else must be gotten through in order to go outside. He longs to greet the world, knowing that the world is filled with dogs. He goes out, arms flung open and willing.

At first, I was skeptical. The passion that provoked Isaiah to crow with delight at the approach of a shaggy canine was completely foreign to me. But now, I am won over. I have witnessed the dog's heart-stopping hello -- the wet nose, the long tongue meeting Isaiah's for a quick French kiss. I have smelled the various fur smells of wet, dry, oily and hot dogs, seen a paw lifted in greeting, a tail draped provocatively across the bar of Isaiah's stroller like a cabaret singer's boa resting on a man's shoulder.

I have discovered the thrill of anticipating a dog, the excitement in the mere idea of a dog. Down any block, around any corner, exists the prospect of comfort, love, welcome, wet eyes, velvet muzzles, deep, deep fur to lose your fingers in. The possibility of nose pulls, yowps, tongue rolls, fists of fur, ear flicks, paw dances, a brush with ecstasy. Perhaps, for the dog, it's all about salt; for Isaiah, it's all about love. Love for something animated, roughly his own height, that runs to him as he runs to it. It? No, not an it. Not a he or a she either. A supreme being.

The power of Isaiah's joy is so strong I am converted. I believe in dog, and in this heightened, devotional consciousness, I, too, seek out dogs wherever I go. I am not so much a human being, woman, or mother as a dog-finder. The extra three feet of height that I have over Isaiah is an adaptive trait that has evolved so I can spot dogs from farther away.

I know things now I never knew I could know: I know that basset hounds have the long ears that drop like tablecloths to the ground. I know who's a mutt and who's not. I know that in a cocker-poodle mix, the brains come from the poodle side of the family. The higher power is lower to the ground and walks on four feet.

Next Page: I never believed that I could survive such inordinate passion

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