Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Pups in standard litters give and receive thousands of signals from each other daily, as they
tumble over one another, licking and biting, squealing in pain, pissing and licking in apo-
logy, and then easing up on the bite. The scrum of a litter gets a pup ready for the rough-
and-tumble of the dog park, the next-door neighbor's snappy Chihuahua, and the chance
encounters with weird people—and children. A singleton pup, though, lives in a universe of
“yes.” They tend to lack “bite inhibition.” They have “touch sensitivity.” They are “unable to
get out of trouble calmly and graciously.” (Although I wasn't an only child, I related to that
last one.) They have an “inability to handle frustration.” (That one, too.) Joan had told me
about the potential upside, and I went on to read those sections with great relief. Singleton
dogs can make extraordinary companions, as they bond closely to people. Sometimes.
David and I avoided the what-ifs that night. We had named this pup even before Vita
came into heat: Coda, literally “tail” in Italian, the musical movement at the end of a com-
position—a looking back, a thoughtful reflection, a summation. This pup was going to com-
plement our academic and social lives, not disrupt them. I recently had been granted tenure
at a good university and was finally building up a head of steam to chug through academic
life like the little engine that could, producing research and fulfilling my destiny as a spunky
and hip faculty administrator who wore cool black outfits and could speak truth to power
without compromising my principles. Nothing would stop my momentum. Perhaps I wasn't
an academic superstar, but I was pretty darned good at what I did. A pup was a simple gift,
my reward for that work, and a welcome distraction from what felt like an increasingly long
university engagement.
We were realistic, or at least that's what we told ourselves. We expected this pup, from
West German breeding lines, to be higher-energy and tougher than Zev, who mostly loved
to lie in the grass and smell the flowers. We already had a dog who took some of our time
and energy: a beautiful female Irish setter we had adopted from my father several years before
to help him adjust to a new life with a lovely woman who wasn't accustomed to large and
quasi-uncontrollable dogs. We offered to take Megan to lighten the dog load. I lied to David
and told him it would be fun, a real adventure, not just a filial duty, to adopt a year-old Irish
setter in heat.
Though Megan was now four and had graduated beyond those moments when we fantas-
ized about placing her on a nice farm in the country, my feelings about Irish setters hadn't
changed much since childhood. They had filled our small house in Oregon with their gaiety,
their indifference to obedience, and their uncanny ability to bolt. They would disappear into
the dark fog of the Willamette Valley, cross-country journeys to nowhere, ending up lost,
miles away from our little house on the hill. Always at night. Their other sins were insubstan-
tial: jumping on guests, snagging empty rolls of toilet paper to play with, occasionally slink-
ing up onto beds and easy chairs when no one was paying attention. My father loved their
