My wife and I have two dogs.  Their names are Wallace and Bleecker and they are so small that we have a genuine fear that they might be eaten by a hawk.  Depending upon what day you ask my wife, Bleecker was named for Bleecker Street in New York, or for the Simon and Garfunkle Song “Bleecker Street” which is named for Bleecker Street in New York.  I came up with Wallace’s name while watching a show on Animal Planet about a fat kid named Liam from England who had a pony named Wallace who was having issues with biting Liam.  As luck would have it, the horse was expressing aggression because Liam was hitting it and pulling its hair.  After all of this was caught on tape, the boy’s mother came up with a solution to everyone’s problems which sadly, did not involve letting the horse kick Liam in the teeth, but instead rewarded him for not physically abusing his miniature pony by serving him “crisps” which is almost as pretentious a name for potato chips as Wallace is for a pony, or a 6 pound dog.

The only downside to our dogs other than vulnerability to raptors, is that they are subjected to endless small dog discrimination, mostly from people who have Labradors or some other kind of dog that sheds and jumps all over company and knocks everything over with its tail and takes up too much room in a car but whose owner insists is “just the best family dog”. I think black labs are boring and have never met a golden retriever who I liked well enough to justify getting its hair all over my clothes but I’ve never had the stones to say it to a dog owner’s face and recognize that even annoying dogs are wonderful creatures.  What’s amazing to me is how people criticize small dogs in front of me, even after they’ve seen that my dogs are cuter and easier to handle than their ridiculous golden retriever which they refer to as a “golden” because it makes it sound cooler than what it is, which is a dog that is as rare as daylight and will definitely suffer from hip displasia.

One of the best parts of dog ownership is being privy to a host of dog-related discussions.  One of my favorites is when I talk with prospective dog owners.  Men, in particular, have all kinds of preconceived notions about dogs that they think are original, and always feel the need to mention.  Most often, men say they want “at least a medium sized dog”  because “they don’t want it to be too fragile” which sounds like the kind of thing you’d be worried about if you were getting a dog as a boxing partner.  They never say it, but the insinuation is that wimpy dogs like mine could never keep up with the manly lifestyle of taking walks around the block or riding in a car that they have planned.   

Another favorite is some variation of the “I need a dog that will be able to climb mountains with me” remark.  This wistful idealized vision of dog ownership that involves the guy fighting for his survival with his trusty dog at his side is usually espoused by people such as my wife’s uncle who drive Audis and climb two mountains a decade.  It’s also these people who make clichéd comments about me, a man of large stature, being emasculated by my dinky dogs, despite the fact that I could whip their ass while their trusty labradoodle was running around rolling in mud puddles and not coming when it’s called.

At our dog park I heard a grown women who wears work out clothes at all times and sends her kids to cello lessons and who I’m sure doesn’t work, referred to my dogs as “puntable”, which she thought was very funny.  Notwithstanding the abject cruelty the name congers up, the notion that anyone would promote animal abuse, in jest or otherwise, would be surprising, if it didn’t come from a woman whose biggest thrill was attending yoga.

My dogs aren’t perfect; Wallace occasionally pees on the floor if we leave him home too long, and Bleecker is occasionally a wimp and makes me carry him on walks when he gets road salt in his feet.  But by and large my dogs are obedient, affectionate, don’t smell, don’t shed, and are phenomenal companions, which is more than I can say for any large dogs I’ve had or any large dogs owned by at least 65% of people I’ve known in my life.  As much as I’d like to believe it, their wonderful behavior isn’t a result of my dog training but rather my subtle 40x size advantage which plays a significant role in establishing my role as their leader and engendering their adoration.  True, my dogs will never pull a sled or climb the high peaks, but neither will yours, because you aren’t going to climb the high peaks, and even if you were you’d realize you were going out to dinner after or staying in a hotel somewhere and bringing the dog will be more of a pain in the ass than it's worth.