They weren’t dog people. They weren’t cat, gerbil
or goldfish people either. They were simply parents with two children.
They lived in a part of the world where dogs are seen as source of companionship rather than protein, and where conventional wisdom holds that dogs teach compassion and responsibility to children.
You can see where this is going.
The parents bought themselves a year or two of delay by going to Barnes and Noble and buying a book with a breed of dogs featured on each spread. Every evening the man and his daughter studied those pages. They invented a game where he would cover the text and she would recite the provenance and personality of each breed. Once she had learned them all, she called in her chits.
She and her mother phoned from the SPCA shelter to describe the prettiest, nicest, smartest, (I-will-walk-him-everyday) dog in the world. He’s got a schmushed-in nose, she told her father.
The family talked it over that night. A Japanese Chen (without papers) would be a fine choice. They would pick him up first thing next morning.
But it turned out that the prettiest, nicest, smartest, (I-will-walk-him-everyday) dog in the world was nowhere to be found. The staff said he may be at another shelter, he may have been adopted, or even, ugh, you know…
The mother stayed while the staff searched databases. The man took the kids to a hot-dog place, preparing them for all possibilities.
When they came back the mother offered some hope. Yes. Maybe. The dog might be in the burbs, Expressway traffic was favorable that Saturday morning — they needed to get there before Cruella.
“It might be the one in aisle F.” the manager said. They looked into cage after cage. There was one dog that fit the profile exactly, but no, it wasn’t him. They had come for nothing. All was lost.
But then way down an aisle, through her tears, the girl saw him. There he was, looking out at her, and he was even more perfect than yesterday. The clerk opened the cage and released him. He spun around three times to sanctify the solemn moment — and then he defecated on the floor. That’s when they knew he was the dog for them.
On the drive home snorting and licking, tail doing seventy in a 55-mph zone, the animal took command of the family sedan and family in it. He ran back and forth exploring his new home. The backs of sofas were to his liking. There were places in the sun to nap and watch animals.
They gave him the name of “Sumo” and it stuck.
Japanese Chins are referred to as cat-dogs and were cultivated to live in royal cages. His new owners could spoil him shamelessly without having to worry about his character. He would learn tricks but he felt performing was beneath his dignity. “I’m not a pug, you know.” But the truth is that he would sell his soul for table scraps.
Sumo almost never barked so it was a surprise when some kids from different cultures would jump up on their chairs during dinner, terrified that a dog might touch their legs.
He was everybody’s pet and he was almost never left alone The family walked him 3 times a day, taking turns. After dark, runners would freeze in their tracks, mistaking him for a skunk. He and the boy spent even more time together after his older sister became a teenager.
The family had never said goodbye to a pet before and, maybe because they weren’t dog people, they weren’t prepared for the intensity of their loss.
