What the Dog Wants

A sense of community is important for all of us creatures.

It started when our neighbors found our dog, Ernie, in their house. Ernie had dug under the fence and into their yard to play with their dogs. When Annie and Brinley went in through their doggie door, Ernie followed.  

Annie is a big brown mutt with a barrel chest, generous waistline, and big, soulful eyes. The doggie door allows her the independence to go outside at night and bark, which she does sometimes. Annie moved in next door with her people, Robert and Mary, just a few months before Ernie invited herself into their home. We had met Robert briefly in the front yard and wondered if we should say anything about the night barking.   

After finding Ernie in their house, Robert and Mary could have fortified the fence or fashioned some other sort of resistance to her incursion. Instead, they agreed with my partner, Ryan, to build a gate into the chain link so the dogs could go back and forth at will. That seemed to be what the dogs wanted — each other. Robert also thought Annie could do with more exercise, that maybe she would lose weight and not get up so much at night. (We didn’t mention the barking, but it seemed like a possible win for everyone.)   

No one remembers exactly how the idea was proposed but it only took a few seconds to agree to build the gate and split the cost. A few days later, two handymen cut a hole in the chain link near the front of the yard while the dogs had their first tastes of more freedom. Ernie had been in the neighbor’s yard, but Annie and Brinley hadn’t been in ours. There was a lot to sniff. It only took a couple of hours to install a four-foot gate, turning the barrier into a passageway. The handymen seemed to enjoy the dogs’ antics while they worked. They left the gate open for the dogs — and it has stayed that way ever since.   

Between the two households, there are four dogs. They spend a lot of time playing outside or just sitting together in the sun. Big Annie can tolerate Ernie’s rambunctious play and the neighbors tolerate her bad habit of pulling on Annie’s collar until it breaks. Both involved parties have quietly replaced the collar at least once. Sometimes we find dog toys we don’t recognize in our house; I suspect the same is true for Robert and Mary. Annie comes over most evenings to ask if Ernie can come outside and play. We see Annie’s face appear at the back door but can also surmise when she is there from Ernie’s excitement.  

Annie and Brinley have become much more than the neighbor’s dogs. They are an important part of Ernie’s life and, I daresay, the humans in our house have grown attached, too. We get two more dogs to love without the responsibility of their care.  

Annie is quick to flop down for belly rubs and likes to sit with me on the top steps of our deck while I scratch her back. Sometimes she just leans on me as we sit together, ignoring Ernie’s pleas to play and making me wonder whether Ernie will realize that Annie’s visits have become as much for my attention as for hers.  

It took longer for Brinley, an older white and tan mutt with light-blue eyes, to settle into the new arrangement; but now she runs and wrestles like she feels young again.   

Ryan’s son, Tyson, claims this arrangement is “the best thing that’s ever happened” to these dogs. They do seem very happy. When Tyson dog-sat for the neighbors last weekend we learned that if Ernie is present when their dogs get evening treats, Ernie gets one, too. It hadn’t occurred to me that Ernie might have developed a relationship with Robert and Mary that I didn’t know about.  

We have gotten to know both our dog and human neighbors better. The fact that Robert and Mary are dog people who care enough about their dogs to allow them this kind of autonomy is probably the most important piece of information. But I also know about Robert’s allergy to chocolate and Mary’s generosity with baking sugar. Sometimes Ryan and Robert stand at the open gate and talk about gardening or other things that neighbors talk about.  

We will probably never be friends in the way that our dogs are, with regular evening playtime; but the dogs have provided us a connection to our neighbors that makes the place we live more special. Other houses haven’t come with a community of happy dogs or neighbors who honor their dogs’ needs as much as Robert and Mary do.  

And it’s been a long time since I heard Annie bark at night — a win for everyone.  

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