A man and his dog

It is often the small pleasures in life that matter the most. One of the small pleasures and conveniences of owning a few secluded acres in the country is that you can pee anywhere. I think this is more of a guy thing than a girl thing.

I’ve been trying to figure out why men take such great pleasure in being able to whiz in the great outdoors whenever the urge overtakes them. One thought is that it’s a regressive canine gene telling us that we need to mark our territory. Another theory is that we find it so much easier to hit the ground than the inside of a toilet bowl. I’m pretty sure women’s rooms don’t have signs saying, “We aim to please. You aim too, please.”

But when you get right down to it, I think the reason men appreciate being able to relieve themselves wherever they are standing is because most men are lazy, slovenly creatures at heart. An unmade bed or dishes piled in the sink doesn’t bother us, particularly if there is something else important we have to do like watch the big game on TV or grab a cold beer or take a nap on the couch. We’re not offended that there is pee on a particular patch of ground behind our workshop particularly when it’s a whole lot easier to walk around the corner of the workshop than it is to trudge to the nearest bathroom.

Which brings me to the main subject of this post—farm dogs. You’re probably wondering what the connection is between men peeing outdoors and farm dogs. I believe there is one, and I’ll get to it in a minute.

I’ve never had a farm dog before. There are several reasons for that but the biggest reason is because I’ve never lived on anything remotely resembling a farm. Now I live on a large property with fields and woods. The nearest neighbor is hundreds of yards away. Farm dog territory, you might say. So it is entirely appropriate and propitious—some might say providential—that Recon, our farm dog, walked into our lives about a year and a half ago.

It happened like this. I was working in the lower pasture when this skinny, flea-ridden, black and white puppy came up to me looking for company. I scratched him for a few minutes, then finished my work. He followed me back to the house. Meredith took pity on him and got him some food and water. My first thought was “don’t do that, he’ll start hanging around here,” but then he ran around the side of the house and returned in three minutes with a mole in his teeth. If you’ll recall, I was waging a one man all-out war against a mole in my garden at the time. That did it for me. Any dog that can catch a mole in three minutes is okay by me. One thing led to another, and the dog became a permanent fixture at Fort Yacavone.

The next issue was what to name him. Mike supplied the answer to that. He is in the 2cd Light Armored Recon Battalion of the U.S. Marines. He suggested we call him Recon. Perfect. Instant fit.

Over the last year or so I have had an opportunity to observe Recon, and I think I understand now what a farm dog is as compared to your usual household pet canine. Here is what I have observed:

• There is nothing prim, proper, pristine or prissy about a farm dog. A farm dog will lay down on dirt, grass, mud, gravel or cow shit when the urge hits it. The corollary to this is that a farm dog takes great delight in rolling in things that stink to high heaven and then acting surprised and offended when you have to give it a bath.
• A farm dog would rather be outside than inside unless it’s very cold or raining heavily.
• A farm dog thinks there’s nothing better than hanging around you when you’re out working in the field or woods. A farm dog gets excited when you fire up the tractor because it knows you’re going to be outside doing something for a while. In short, a farm dog is a man's outdoor companion.
• A farm dog likes to roam through field and wood, sniffing every leaf, stalk, bush and tree trunk in hopes of catching the spoor of some animal that has dared to venture onto its territory. In the same vein, a farm dog will sit outside for hours watching its surroundings in hopes that something interesting shows up.
• A farm dog will take off after deer, rabbits, turkeys, and other woodland creatures like a bat out of hell in the vain hope that it will actually be able to catch something.
• Farm dogs are not fussy about what they eat and will eat or try to eat any dead thing it encounters unless it’s absolutely putrid or a dead possum.
• A farm dog will find the bones of dead animals and bring them back to its home base to chew on contentedly for hours under a tree.

I’m not saying that Recon is the perfect farm dog. I think most farm dogs know where their home territory is and can find their way home. Recon seems to have an issue with this. I think the problem is that he’s a friendly dog, still young and likes to play. So every now and then he hears children, other dogs or people in the distance and takes off to investigate. Hours later we get a call from someone who lives a half mile away telling us that he or she has our dog.

The reason people know that Recon is our dog is because we put a tag on him that reads, “I’m a dumbass and I’m lost. Please call these numbers,” and it gives our phone numbers. At this point most of the people in the neighborhood think Recon’s name is Dumbass. I think some even believe my last name is Dumbass. It's not. It's only my occasional nickname. I’ve gotten phone calls that go like this:

Caller: “Are you Mr. Dumbass?”

Me: “Uh, yes, that would be me.”

Caller: “I’ve got your dog. Want to come get him?”

We’re hoping that as he gets older Recon loses the habit of wandering off or, at the very least, develops a sense of direction so he can find his way home like any other self-respecting dog.

So, anyway, what does owning farm dog have to do with men liking to pee outdoors aside from the obvious fact that farm dogs also pee outdoors? Well, it occurs to me that most men are a lot like farm dogs. They don’t mind getting stinky and dirty, will eat disgusting food, like to roam and sometimes have a hard time finding their way home. And, like farm dogs, they are happy if you feed ‘em regularly, rub their belly every now and then, let them do the human equivalent of sniffing branches and twigs and chasing after game they will never catch and give them a comfortable corner to sleep in at the end of the day.

The way I see it, much of human behavior is a lot less complicated than Freud, Jung and all the famous psychiatrists make it out to be. But what the hell do I know? I’m just a man trying to keep up with his dog.