White House goes to the dogs, once again CHRIS CHURCHILL
Contact columnist Chris Churchill at 518454-5442 or email cchurchill@ timesunion. com
Small apartments and unsympathetic landlords kept me from having the childhood dog I always wanted, but I adopted a stray in college and, save for a few short gaps, have had at least one dog in my life ever since.
Our family now includes a dog and a cat, and I don’t want to imagine it any other way. A house without pets would be, to me, less of a home. Something vital would be missing.
Donald Trump doesn’t feel similarly. He left office Wednesday as the first president in more than 100 years not to have a pet during his time in office. By many accounts, Trump doesn’t much care for animals.
“How would I look walking a dog on the White House lawn?” he once asked. (He would have looked great, but he’d have needed to carry a little bag for … well, for you know what.)
I’m reluctant to ascribe special virtue to pet owners. There are, I am sure, wonderful people who don’t want cats or dogs in their lives, people who are content to keep non-human beasts outside.
But I’ll admit that I’m wary of people who simply don’t like animals. From my perspective, it’s a personality defect as troubling as, say, rooting for Manchester United or enjoying Brussels sprouts. Who are such people? I don’t understand them.
I suspect I’m not the only one who finds it reassuring that Joe Biden is bringing two dogs, Major and Champ, to Washington. If nothing else, the White House will feel more like a home with those two roaming the halls and sniffing the carpeting. As it happens, Major and Champ are German shepherds, just like Olive, our family dog. Major and Olive are also both rescues — Biden adopted Major from the Delaware Humane Association, while we found Olive at the Ayers Animal Shelter, a wonderful little operation in Montgomery County.
Politicians usually choose breeds considered less likely to worry the mailman. But while German shepherds are protective and associated with the serious business of police work, those of us who love them know they are misunderstood. They are as goofy and lovable as any other breed, if not more so.
German shepherds are, however, large and more than a touch rambunctious. So, don’t be surprised if a Biden presidential address from the Oval Office is interrupted by an explosion of barking, or if holes suddenly appear around the Rose Garden.
At the end of November, Biden revealed he had broken his foot while roughhousing with Major. The story sounded dubious to some inclined toward conspiracy theories, but those of us with German shepherds nodded knowingly. Totally plausible, we thought.
OK, so Biden has dogs. In a nation wrestling with more than one crisis, does that really matter?
Probably not. But I wonder if the Trump presidency might have been different if he’d had a dog or even a cat by his side. Pets soften us. They calm our stress and keep us grounded. They teach us empathy. They show us how to love.
We take them into our homes assuming we’re doing them the favor, but we’re the ones who benefit most. In the act of caring for them, we become more humane. Knowing and loving animals makes us, strangely, more fully human.
I probably won’t be the first to say that Trump seemed like a president who needed the company of a good and loyal dog — a friend in Washington not on the payroll.
Maybe, just maybe, having a dog at his side would have tempered Trump’s tweets and dulled his insults. Perhaps Trump would have been a bit more empathetic and a little less self-absorbed.
It’s just harder to feel like the world is a bad place when a dog is snoring contentedly on a nearby couch. It’s easier to forget about sending a mean tweet when a dog approaches with a ball in its mouth, wanting to play. Dogs live in the joy of each beautiful moment and encourage us to do the same.
Dogs don’t have time for grudges or partisan fights. They love Republicans and Democrats alike.
To see a beloved dog turn gray at the mouth is to understand, fully, the tragic limit of time. Yet to watch an unleashed dog romp is to know the world can still be a wonderful, wild and optimistic place.
Major and Champ don’t guarantee Joe Biden will be a good president. But they make it less likely he’ll be a bad one.