Oh. My. Dog.

Edition 37: Reflections on the worldly lessons my puppy has taught me (so far)

Custard with AJ Lee this weekend (image courtesy of AJ Lee)

I just want to say up top that I know you don’t want to hear me wang on about how great my pet is. I mean, there is an audience for that type of thing, but frankly it’s not the one I seek to cultivate.

However, (oh, here she goes), goddammit I love my pup. In the short time he has been alive, Custard has taught me many things that you would have thought an internationally traveling, manager job holding, sun speckled 42 year mom might have grasped already.

He arrived on April 27th, 2024, just shy of two months old, with floppy ears and wise brown eyes and fur like a whipped caramel soft serve. He bounced over the porch and immediately tumbled down the steps to the grass. Oops. The kids were smitten: chasing his soft little tush around the garden and posing for endless photos with him, their cheeks rosy and pupils dilated, as mesmerized as the little girl that Taylor Swift gives her hat to at every gig. Custard cried the first night in his crate, even when I lay next to him on the couch, and I wished I could transfigure into a cocker spaniel and snuggle with all the doggy smells and instincts of his real mother.

A quick synopsis of the months with Custard since that day: much chewing, running, snoozing and woofing; many holes in pajama bottoms and resignation to the fact that every rug in our house now has rounded, raggedy corners; a lot of tugging at burrs caught in his surfer dude hair. And endless cooing over his adorable face, legs, waggly butt, and general adorableness.

But let’s get serious. What could a puppy, even a really cute one, teach me about life as an adult human?

Well, being less stuck to my screen, for one.

The screen issue is real. Parents (me included) are lobbying schools to ban smartphones in order to allow kids to learn without distraction, be less exposed to bullying and scary, capitalist-driven social media trends, and literally maintain the ability to see things properly. Plus, as a fully remote worker — a privilege I acknowledge and am thankful for — I spend hours and hours and hours of my life on zooms, in G-Suite, and writing my necessary mid-life crisis Substack.

However, as my colleagues and clients will attest, since Custard arrived I spend a lot more time away from my laptop. I am constantly apologizing and going on mute to jump up and let the dog out because he’s barking manically at a cyclist going past, or periodically shutting the computer completely to take a break and go for a quiet walk up the street so Custard can stretch his legs and sniff every piece of bear scat or squirrel pee we come across. It is liberating to be with a living creature that does not give a sh*t about digital devices or para-social relationships and would rather roll on his back in the dirt than send an email or play Zelda.

The high pitched noise Custard makes at every delivery man and fly that goes past is annoying beyond belief, don’t get me wrong. No one wants a yappy dog. My husband bought Custard a collar that buzzes (gently) when he barks but it seems to have the opposite effect than intended: creating a percussive baseline to his barking that he thinks he should keep time with. But some part of me is grateful for his complete oblivion to the inane stress of normal adult life. Deadlines and pitch meetings mean nothing to Custard. HE IS JUST VERY MAD ABOUT THE CYCLISTS.

Custard as a tiny pup, Spring 2024 (image courtesy of AJ Lee)

Another important lesson from Custard: my husband is a big softy, really. Our writer in residence is not touchy feely — he doesn’t do hand holding, makes sarcastic jokes involuntarily if conversation gets too earnest, and has never made adoring proclamations of love for me in public. It is a standing joke that this acclaimed novelist and screen writer’s first choice for our wedding vows from the pre-typed list was the short and snappy ‘Option C’, until the registrar pointed out to him that that is the option typically reserved for people for whom English is their second language.

And yet, with Custard, my husband is complete mush. I sometimes find him in the kitchen, face buried in Custard’s neck, whispering ‘I love you, pup’, while Custard looks back at me with a look of bemused endurance. While typically a man of habit who likes his spot on the couch with no intrusion from my feet or others, my husband will now happily squash himself into the arm to make space for the puppy so they can cozy up and watch an obscure sports documentary together. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he arranges a party for Custard’s 1st birthday next March, complete with a speech outlining all the ways Custard is the best dog put on God’s green earth. Watch out for the Paperless Post coming your way.

Custard has also taught me a lot about freedom. I admit that the power imbalance of owning Custard, a vibrant poetic soul trapped in the body of a teddy bear, does weigh on me sometimes: would he rather be roaming free in the wilds of upstate New York, eating dead possums or doing whatever it is he would like to do in the forest? Or simply living with a dog family of his own? For some reason I am much more conscious of this dynamic than I ever was at eight years old when I owned two guinea pigs, Whiskey & Mac (named after my Grandma Eileen’s favorite drink). I think I was too bothered by their constant pooping for larger ethical concerns. But I don’t mean this type of freedom.

No, I mean the type of craving for freedom from responsibility that makes youth so wanton, and how our selfish selves start to feel appreciation for limitations as we grow older. Zadie Smith (who says most things I want to say but better) explained it in a podcast recently: “I realized my ideas of freedom were completely neoliberal fantasies. Like basically, let me choose everything. Don't put any demands on me. And it really took me a long time to understand that things that I've been taught by the capitalist eighties to believe were unfreedom, are freedom. 

Having people who mean something to you, who you have duties towards, is not unfreedom. It is freedom. It's actual existence. Now I consider all my relations, my friends, my dog, my husband, my family, as things that liberate me from myself… they are absolute freedom to me and without them I would just be completely lost.”

Custard is part of our family now. It’s a bit tiring to have to get up every day at 6.30am to let him out for a pee. It’s a pain to have to arrange places for him to stay when we go away. It’s infuriating when he’s surrounded by one thousand chew toys but he still wants to eat the internet wiring. It’s very loud when he barks incessantly at something I can’t see or smell. But I’m so happy he’s here and I would be lost without him.

Custard in the yard, Summer 2024 (image courtesy of AJ Lee)