Dog Tags

A few years ago, the 7-year old boy next door (known to me only as Blue Knuckles) asked about my mutt-brown border collie: "Is Chomsky more like your son or your brother?"

Er, um. Astute question, kid, I thought, and to this day I’ve never really been able to answer it. If you’re a dog owner, maybe you know what I mean. Sure, you provide for them like a parent, cleaning up puddles of grassy-biley barf from the rugs, gingerly pinching plastic bags of steaming matter en route to the nearest trashcan, shivering through twice-a-day walks weighed down by an arsenal of spit-sodden tennis balls, fragmented Milk Bones, and crinkled baggies. But you also have those moments where you’re not sure who’s benefiting more--or who’s really representing the wiser species. When the dog isn’t merely buddy, chum, or pal, but compadre, mentor, or sensei.

Non-dog people, you who are pshawing my hyperbole right now, you just don’t get it. And you won’t understand when I say "right on" to the fine members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors who this week passed an ordinance granting pet owners recognition in the city health code as "pet guardians." While I still can’t answer Blue Knuckles’ query, I know Chomsky’s more an animal than he is a piece of property.