Once in a while someone in my household, in the grips of overthinking, exclaims to everyone else: “It’s so weird! We have an animal living in our house!”
Whoever says it will be referring to the dog, Arthur, and the rest of us will look at him, likely sitting on one of the armchairs, or standing in the middle of the kitchen with a ball in his mouth, and we will all agree: it is so weird.
What’s weirdest is that Arthur, the animal, in many respects has the powers of a human despot. You might say our cavoodle dictates the rhythms of the house. Every morning, for starters, he gives an overzealous shake that clangs his collar about, waking us all up before we are ready. I am usually quite relieved to be up, to finally unfurl my neck. You see, Arthur sleeps curled around my head, on my pillow. Since Arthur joined our family, I have paid approximately $115 a week to see the physio. It’s worth it – his little foot pads on my face, the sweet snuffle of his doggy snores.
My acquiescence to Arthur’s wants elicits two kinds of response: either disbelief that I am such a pushover – a fool to believe an animal’s happiness might depend on the comfort of quality cotton linen, memory foam and the warmth of my head – or deep understanding.
Indeed there is no understanding so deep as that of another human held hostage by their creature. I know that my colleague, who is under the command of his cat, gets me. He confessed to me, bleary eyed and pale last week, that he hasn’t been sleeping very well since his family moved into a new apartment. “The cat doesn’t like it,” he said.
That the cat isn’t fond of high-rise living is the least of my colleague’s problems. It is an addition to the cat’s other quite particular needs. “The cat likes to sleep in the spare bed,” he explained. And then, with his eye twitching: “With me. I have to be there too.” No one gets any sleep in the household unless my colleague goes along with the cat, leaving his actual partner in their actual bed.
I mentioned it in a friends’ WhatsApp group, and one friend immediately responded with a similar problem. “We have to leave every door in the house ajar overnight to the width of the cat’s head because she likes to be able to look at what’s going on outside from every window. Otherwise she scratches at the door and wakes us all.” Heating and cooling bills were exponential at her place.
“Yup. If I get up to wee after 3am, the cat walks all over me until I feed her,” chimed in another. We workshopped various remedies, and my friend signed off from the chat, excited at the possibility of beating the cat by setting her alarm for 2.50am every night.
“I can’t wear hats,” said a third. “Dog goes nuts.”
“Can’t put a new bin bag in,” shared another, who has a chihuahua who spins around in circles yapping madly any time a plastic bag is ruffled. “I just take my rubbish straight out to the wheelie bin.”
“Have to carry him over wet grass,” added a friend who owns a German shepherd.
There’s my friend who had a poodle that prevented any conversation happening for at least 20 minutes after visitors arrived by barking so sharply that no one could hear anything. Visitors were prepped before arrival to completely stonewall the dog. No eye contact. No touching. Also no touching anyone else. The dog didn’t like other people touching other people.
A relative on my mother’s side handfeeds her dog. The dog won’t eat unless from a human hand.
There are other things Arthur demands that I have become so used to that they no longer seem odd. He does not like it if I close the door to the bathroom. He does not like it when he sees animals in TV shows. He will not cross the threshold of the front door, in or out, unless I shake a bag of treats (he does not require the treats themselves, only the sound of them).
At 8pm most evenings he wants me to throw for him a specific toy (we call it Vampire Radish, because it is, inexplicably, a plush purple radish with pointed teeth). He will only drink water at a park if it is flowing from a tap. If I put any shoes on anytime, he goes nuts, thinking he’s going walking, so I mostly only put my shoes on once I am in my car. And sometimes he won’t eat his kibble until he sees me eating it, which of course I don’t do because I am not completely nuts. But I do hold the bowl up to my face and make a cronch-cronch noise and tell him how delicious it is.
And I will continue doing all this, mind you, no matter what judgment comes my way. Because I know Arthur would do all this for me, too – if only he had as weak boundaries and low stamina for obedience training as I have.
Nicola Redhouse is a Melbourne writer and author of Unlike the Heart: A Memoir of Brain and Mind.
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Nicola Redhouse is a Melbourne writer and author of Unlike the Heart: A Memoir of Brain and Mind.
