Going to the Dogs

… We’ll be better off, healthier, wiser
(c) 2019, Davd

Call it hyperbole if you like, but I’ve decided to make my pre-Valentine’s Day blog this year, about that non erotic love most men have for, and receive from most dogs. Turns out the Saint, on the best evidence i could quickly get, was neither erotic, nor shot through the heart with an arrow. His virtues were fidelity to his faith, healing love, and truthfulness when it cost him his life. I can say much the same of several good and excellent dogs, except, happily, none of them yet was martyred, and i mean to protect Fritz from such fate also.¹

When i was young and Wikipedia still well in the future, I read about St. Valentine being executed by arrows, but i did not make reference notes (what schoolboy does? … if not assigned to by a teacher?); so to check that story, I looked in the Catholic Encyclopedia and Wikipedia, last month.

February 14 is associated with one or more Saints Valentine, both sources agreed. Wikipedia reports:

All that is reliably known of the saint commemorated on February 14 is his name and that he was martyred and buried at a cemetery on the Via Flaminia close to the Ponte Milvio to the north of Rome on that day.²

The Catholic Encyclopedia mentions two Saints Valentine who were martyred at Rome and associated with February 14:

At least three different Saint Valentines, all of them martyrs, are mentioned in the early martyrologies under date of 14 February. One is described as a priest at Rome, another as bishop of Interamna (modern Terni), and these two seem both to have suffered in the second half of the third century and to have been buried on the Flaminian Way, but at different distances from the city. … Of the third Saint Valentine, who suffered in Africa with a number of companions, nothing further is known..

Legends and “hagiographies” cited by Wikipedia seem to agree that the Saint[s] were executed for persisting in Christian evangelism during persecution by Emperor Claudius. Wikipedia mentions that two of them included reports that the Saint restored the sight of a blind girl by prayer (one stating she was a jailer’s daughter, the other, a judge’s).

Love, in the form of charity, we can find in those pages — but neither arrows nor eros. The Wikipedia article [apophatically?] attributes the romantic eros connection to Chaucer et alia:

Many of the current legends that characterize Saint Valentine were invented in the 14th century in England, notably by Geoffrey Chaucer and his circle, when the feast day of February 14 first became associated with romantic love. … During the Middle Ages, it was believed that birds paired in mid-February. This was then associated with the romance of Valentine.

Plainly, the mid-February mating of birds is more a European³ than a Canadian phenomenon. Equally plainly, commercial interests advertise Valentine’s Day merchandise more in parallel with Chaucer than with the Saint and martyrdom. It may be worth remembering that commercial interests advertise “to make money”.

I value love other than the erotic, and healing, and fidelity… and so for those readers who might be considering marriage, offer the love of a good dog as a model for choosing a good wife (or husband, for that matter.)

“If you want love and loyalty,” i read years ago from some Feminist source or sources, “don’t get a wife, get a dog.” My own experience fits with that Sneer: I have received love and loyalty from several good dogs during my life, and i’m divorced (at her initiative), not married⁴.

Thus my first piece of Valentine’s Day advice for men who are unmarried and ‘dating’, or whatever the successor to dating is called in this wicked century: Don’t marry a woman who is less loving, less loyal, than a really good dog. If that leaves out the woman or women you have lately been ‘dating’, better you be forewarned.⁵

My second piece of advice is: Live truth — yes, I said [at least try to] live no lies at all. No social lies, no “white lies”, and whether selling or sex seeking, no self-serving lies.⁶ If you’re going to marry, marry a woman with whom you can be completely truthful and who will be completely truthful with you.

If doggedly loyal, faithful, truthful women be scarce, so that many men don’t find one to marry; if you be one man who winds up unmarried; well, as the Sneer said backhanded, you have a much better chance of finding a dog who will be faithful, truthful, loyal, and loving. A good marriage should be good for your health and hers; a bad marriage is very likely to be bad for your health. Dogs, we shall see below, are good for most men’s health (and nearly all the other men are allergic.)

Threefold points are somewhat favoured in English language writings, so let me add a third item of advice here, for men considering marriage: Have some outings together with your dog or dogs, and the woman you are considering. You’ll likely learn things about her character that “romancing'” seldom brings out. One of them might well be, how she treats loyal, faithful friends who have neither eros nor money to offer her.

I expect to spend February 14 with a beloved, faithful dog.

Dogs do our health much more good than harm. Anti-dog rules do much more harm than good, except where they set aside minority fractions of housing, public space, and transportation for the minority of people who are allergic to dogs. There likewise ought to be peanut free foods and eateries for the minority of people who are allergic to peanuts, alcohol abstinent groups and venues for the minority of people who are allergic to alcoholic drink, and so forth. But if I enjoy beer and peanuts and they are better for me than sugary soda-pop and Twinkies, then bless beer and peanuts for me and the majority of men who can benefit from their moderate use.

Bless “regular⁷ dogs” even more. After suffering a near total absence of dog friendly Seniors’ apartments in east-central Alberta, I began keeping notes on stories about the merits of canine company. Those merits are many and powerful; here are a few examples that are easy to describe quickly:

A survivor of the Humboldt Broncos bus crash was recently delighted, and his recovery visibly helped, by a service dog.

Children are able to remain still for medical scans with canine help rather than having to take medication that might reduce the value of the scans.

Supportive therapy dogs help mitigate the stress of being a police constable. Police work is often stressful; and can produce battle fatigue, formally called PTSD.

Dogs in nursing homes, hospitals, universities and even prisons help confined people, reducing negative stress consequences from anxiety to aggression.

A Labrador retriever in a London [UK] school has helped children with bereavement and anxiety issues and without special service training, has become a valuable part of the school.

The BBC website, like many, provided advice on improving one’s general and mental health at year end and the start of the New Year. Among “The simple tips to improve your health” published by Health reporter Alex Therrien, was … Adopt a dog. Therrien quotes Dr. Rhys Thatcher, of Aberystwyth University:

… there are particular benefits to adopting a dog. [When you] walk it for at least 30 minutes twice a day, you will be boosting your activity while also getting the emotional benefits of dog adoption.

“This way you get to spend time outside, you get to exercise, you get a loyal companion and at the same time you get to improve the life of another living thing, all of which have been shown to improve physical and mental health,”

Even if you are not in confinement, not a soldier or constable, don’t have acute PTSD, and are not under high stress or recovering from extreme stress — canine company is good for you. It is good for me. The canine need not be expensively trained, for many, probably for most benefits. Our species evolved together, we are both pack animals, not solitary like cougars and bears, nor herd beasts like cattle and bison.

Instead of being biased against men with regular dogs, the laws and practices of a genuinely healthy society would be biased in our favour.

References:

Thurston, Herbert, 1912. “St. Valentine.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 15. New York: Robert Appleton Company.

Wikipedia, 2019. “Saint Valentine”. Accessed January 30.

Notes:

1. . Fritz, and the other superior dogs before him, have defended me and our home when we had one, from bears, deer, moose, and smaller intruders; but prudently: Warning barks, followed by my appearance or voice so the animal knows there are a canine and a human to confront, have nearly always been enough. I have felt safer sleeping in Rest Areas with a dog in the vehicle: Thieves thinking of raiding a parked car tend to think twice when they realize that a man and a regular [not toy] dog are in it — and look for a “softer target”.

2. Wikipedia elaborates: “According to the official biography of the Diocese of Terni, Bishop Valentine was born and lived in Interamna and while on a temporary stay in Rome he was imprisoned, tortured, and martyred there on February 14, 269. His body was hastily buried at a nearby cemetery and a few nights later his disciples retrieved his body and returned him home.”

3… and imaginably, southern-US phenomenon. I leave to the ornithologists, whether birds who nest in Canada might mate before flying north to lay their eggs, and when.

4. Please notice, I don’t deny that faithful, loyal, co-operative women exist, even by the millions — but I also accept what that Sneer is telling us: Millions of other women are not faithful, loyal, and co-operative. My main point is that women worthy of marriage treat their men as loyally as good dogs treat their close human company.

5… as an old stock phrase said, “Marry in haste, repent at leisure.” (and i should acknowledge, in this wicked century, that many men are dating rather than married, because they are too prudent to marry, as well as too horny to avoid close contact with women.)

6. I mean quite seriously, that we should strive never to lie. A factual mistake is not a lie; a lie is an untruth uttered knowing it is not true. If some readers believe, or even “feel”, that you must tell some lies to function socially: Keep those lies to a minimum to start with, and get out of situations that require lying, to continue with.

One subtle form of self-serving lies, that is common among women and rare among men, is clothing and make-up that enhances, sometimes downright counterfeits, their sexuality. Especially now that the Government of Canada has made the big cannabis tax grab, why not go on to cosmetics and showy impractical clothing?

7. “Regular dogs” is a phrase composed to exclude canines bred to be cute imitation babies, to attack people or animals, or look strange [as some bulldogs, not so much boxers, look to me]. As an apophatic description, a regular dog is one who weighs more than 10-15 kg [22-33 pounds], is friendly more than aggressive, likes to run, and can run faster than a healthy boy. Pekingese are not regular dogs, beagles and Jack Russell terriers are in personality but not size. Border Collies, Huskies, Labradors, retrievers generally, Springer spaniels, (and Newfoundlands among the big breeds) are “obviously” regular dogs.