A Walk That Got the Kinks Out

A strange yellow orb appeared in the sky over State College, Pa., the other day. Those with long memories recalled seeing it before. “I think it’s called the sun,” someone said.

“Sun,” I thought. “Nice.”

Sun was doing what it could to make a cold day seem warm, so I asked Dorn if he wanted to go for a walk.

He did, but only if he could commandeer a dog to walk with us. He quoted someone or other who said a dog was a better companion on a walk than a human because it is better to pick up crap than to listen to it.

“If you find a dog,” I replied, “you’ll have to do both.”

Dorn called around and was offered Lola, a yellow Lab. If you’ve read “Marley and Me” – author John Grogan is speaking at Penn State this spring, as it happens – Lola is the anti-Marley: calm, quiet, even dignified. We took her downtown to return library books and then stopped at Webster’s for a hot drink. You can bring Lola into a place like Webster’s. Heck, you can bring Lola to tea with the queen, although she (Lola, not the queen) did leer at Dorn’s bagel.

While Dorn ate his bagel, I held Lola’s leash and was reminded of what it’s like to be a dog owner. (Bop the Movie Dog died in 2004; he was a scruffy, gray, bearded fellow, just like his master.) Suddenly, people began coming up to me. They sought permission to pet “my” dog. I suppose I should have said I didn’t know if Lola minded being petted by strangers because I didn’t know Lola very well, but it seemed a lot to explain and I had faith in Lola. She basked in the attention. It got her mind off Dorn’s bagel.

From Webster’s we crossed the street to Appalachian Outdoors. There, too, Lola was welcome. While Dorn tried on hats, Lola sniffed socks. I tried to explain to her that these were unworn socks, lacking the piquancy imparted by recent contact with the human foot. She thought she should check though, just in case.

After a while, the novelty of this thing called sunshine drew me back outdoors. So Lola and I loitered on the corner of Allen Street and Calder Way and I marveled at the outpouring of human love for dogs.

A boy riding on his daddy’s shoulders locked eyes on Lola from halfway down the street and twisted his head around to continue looking at her after he and his bearer had passed us.

An Italian gent said, “Ciao, bello.” L-O-L-A Lola did not seem offended that he had taken her for a male. Maybe she’s heard the song about her namesake.

A series of Penn State women said something like “Oh, the puppy” in the cootchie-coo voices they reserve for pets and babies.

Several passersby just felt the need to tell their companions to look at the dog, as if Canis lupus familiaris sightings were rare. Some swiped their hands across Lola’s head as they went by without breaking stride. Others stopped in their tracks and gave grateful Lola the full body rub treatment.

And then there were the people who had to stop and tell me about their dogs. This put us on a level of intimacy to which I did not feel entitled, so I confessed that Lola was not, in fact, my dog.

After 20 minutes of this I realized how much the human-dog connection connects us to other humans. Sometimes, on a summer evening, I’ll see all my neighbors walking their dogs at the same time and forming a merry clump of people and dogs, and I’ll feel like they are all members of a club to which I do not belong.

Where I am not going with this is deciding that I simply must get another dog. I appreciate dogs immensely. I particularly love, when I’m hiking, the way a dog I’ve never seen before will bound up to me as if I were his long-lost pal and he was delighted to bump into me out here in the woods, of all places. I think how wholly benign such a dog’s experience of human beings must be for it to approach a stranger with such trust and affection, and it touches me.

But unlike Dorn, I’m speechist. You know, as in ageist or sexist. That is, I would rather listen to crap than clean it up. Lo lo lo lo Lola is everything that is lovely about dogs. But after spending all that quality time with her I have to say, she was a lousy conversationalist.

Dog lovers will say I was a lousy listener. Maybe I am. They’ll say their most profound communion occurs with their dogs. I don’t doubt that this is true. But read my mini-bio: crossword puzzle junkie, journalist, story lover. I’m a word man, man. I want a dog with a dark brown voice.

Click here to see the words to “Lola” (written by Ray Davies). And if you’ve got a line on a good talking dog, especially one that walks on two legs and wears a bowtie, like Mr. Peabody, write to rfrank@psu.edu.