By John Kelly,
Bezos. Branson. Musk.
Archie.
How did my dog — a seven-year-old Labrador retriever — find himself among the world’s space barons? Well, it’s a funny story.
Like many geniuses, Archie is a bit odd in the head. No offense to Elon, Jeff and Sir Richard, but a lot of their behavior — their tics and weird enthusiasms — is excusable only in the super-rich. If the guy next to you on the bus screamed that everyone should invest in cryptocurrency, you’d find another seat. If a normal person gave his kid a name that’s a string of seemingly random capital letters, you’d call child protective services. If your brother-in-law bought land in the desert and started clearing the rocks to make a “spacecraft landing strip,” you’d stop inviting him to Thanksgiving.
Billionaires get a pass.
Of course, Archie isn’t a billionaire. But he is a disrupter. When we first adopted him, almost a year ago, he disrupted right on our living room floor. Thankfully, he hasn’t done that again. That’s because Archie is capable of learning. He learned that he should poop outside.
And like most dogs, Archie is very attentive. Dogs pay attention to their owners’ every move. They scrutinize our habits and routines. They know which cupboard holds the dog treats, which shoes we put on just before we walk them, what the word “vet” means and then — after we notice how stressed they get when we say “vet” — how “V-E-T” means the same thing as “vet.”
Dogs are furry sponges.
Unfortunately, Archie is a furry, neurotic sponge. He’s a rescue dog who was spirited out of some apparently unpleasant situation in the South. He suffers from separation anxiety. Archie is very sweet, but the minute we leave him alone, he gets distressed: racing around the house, whimpering, barking and standing on the couch so he can look out the living room window like a ship captain’s bride awaiting her husband’s return.
We put our name down for an appointment with a veterinarian who specializes in calming neurotic dogs, but she’s so backed up it may be months before we get Archie on the couch, so to speak. In the meantime, we’re trying a few of our own methods to calm him. We halfheartedly tried a crate but he cried even more. We filled a hollow rubber toy — a kong — with peanut butter and treats but he ignored it and we’d return to find it untouched.
Only one thing seems to work. Its success depends on subterfuge.
My Lovely Wife is the alpha in our house. Archie glommed onto her from the start. He likes me but he really likes Ruth. So what we do is this: When we go out, we walk from the living room into the study and close that door behind us. Then Ruth pulls up a YouTube video on her computer of herself speaking over Zoom to college students in the Netherlands. It’s a lecture that before the pandemic she would have delivered in person. She sets the video to loop itself repeatedly and then we quietly go out the study door that leads to the backyard. We sneak around to the car, get in and drive away.
It seems to be working.
We started with quick trips to the store and back, but we’ve been able to leave Archie for up to four hours. When we return — go through the back door, turn off the video, enter the living room via the study — he’s usually curled up on the floor. He’s not all sweaty and agitated, like he is when he thinks we’re gone. Archie hears his master’s voice and chills.
But here’s the thing: Ruth is a lawyer who works in the satellite industry. She’s involved with things like orbits, spectrum rights and space debris. And that’s what she talks about in that lecture: the pros and cons of a low-earth orbit versus a geosynchronous one, the Ku frequency band versus the Ka band, the international laws that regulate human-made objects in space.
Archie has heard Ruth’s lecture over and over and over again. Surely it’s all been penetrating that canine cranium of his. It’s only a matter of time before Archie makes his move, sending up his own constellation of bone-shaped satellites or launching a spaceship to sniff out Uranus, every dog’s favorite planet.
As Archie said to us the other day: “You know, the first animal in space was a dog. How you Laika that?”
Fur goodness sake
What wacko accommodations have you made for your pet? Have you tried to outsmart your dog or trick your cat? Send the details — with “Pet Smart” in the subject line — to me at john.kelly@washpost.com.
Twitter: @johnkelly
For previous columns, visit washingtonpost.com/john-kelly.
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