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Wisdom

Scout, a sweetheart of a black Lab from the end of the block, was out for her usual morning stroll in the neighborhood, slowly accompanying her human on their daily trip to the local bodega for coffee and a newspaper.

Her human is my friend Bern. He’s a big-time attorney, but on the street in the early morning hours he’s just another dog guy in a hat and T-shirt with a plastic bag, doing his morning routine. Like many of us in our Upper East Side neighborhood here in New York City, he is known more for his dog and consequently is “Scout’s dad” to a lot of folks.

Here, if you’re out walking your dog (or dogs), you just come to expect that any greeting goes first to the dog—“Hey, Scout!” After that, you might get an acknowledgment, perhaps something less enthusiastic than the greeting that your dog got. And, even though people are quick to know your dog, they might not know your name—you’ll often have to settle for a nod and “How ya doin’?”

I used to own two sports bars in Seattle, and our regular customers often took on their identity with us according to what they always ordered: “Bud in a bottle”…“Stoli and tonic”…“bacon cheeseburger”…and so on. Same thing for all of us on East 72nd Street when it came to our dogs: “Poodle guy”…“Dachshund lady”…“Pug man”…

But with those who we see regularly, we do in fact have names for the dogs and their people: Elsie and Judith, Arthur and Norma, Morgan and Ed, Meggie and Karen, Lucy and Nicole, Jack and Jim and Felix, Lady and Maria, Cardozo and David, Butter and Seraphina and Michelle, and many more.

Those of us with dogs will tell you that our dogs define the neighborhood culture and social scene. The dogs are the great equalizers, bringing people together every day. It often starts with the very simple request: “May I pet your dog?” There is no phrase that brings together people any better than that one does. Diplomats should all get dogs and get to work making friends with each other.

Cheri and I joke that we might not know anyone in our neighborhood if we didn’t have dogs. Instead, we have a rich collection of friends and acquaintances: doormen, parking attendants, food vendors, street characters, nurses and doctors and other medical professionals heading to work at the nearby hospitals, people with their earbuds in, people in business suits, people in T-shirts, people hauling their children around, people just hanging out.

At the age of thirteen, Scout was slowing down, and her one-block journey each morning was becoming more and more labored. Nonetheless, Bern faithfully and patiently allowed Scout this daily ritual, no doubt knowing how much it must have meant to her to have the time with him. My guess was that for Bern, it wasn’t about the coffee—it was a combination of his sense of duty and his love for Scout. It was wonderful to witness this two-way devotion every morning.

When you have a dog, whether or not you are smart enough to realize it, this faithfulness and patience in the daily routine from start to finish is part of the deal. So in spite of the fact that we were watching Scout nearing the end of her life, we could all smile at what we got to see every day. I know that Bern would have done anything for Scout, and Scout would have done anything for Bern. She may not have done it as quickly as she would have in the past, but she would have done it.

One morning, watching Bern head back up the street with Scout, I said to him, “I guess you don’t have many early morning appointments at the office these days.”

He paused, looked at Scout, and smiled. She kept trudging along, not wanting to slow her momentum. She knew that he would catch up.

“You know,” he said, “Scout has taught me that you don’t need to go through life in a hurry. You see so much more when you go slow.”

Ah, wisdom. Bern’s a smart guy; he gets it. But as good an attorney as he might be, I bet he rarely says anything this powerful in any courtroom. I am never surprised by the simple eloquence that dogs inspire from their people.

Scout passed shortly after this, and all of us in the neighborhood mourned the loss of a family member. It doesn’t take Bern as long to get to the bodega every morning now, but I’m sure that Scout is still making that trip with him every day. And even better, she left him with a piece of wisdom that may not be taught in law school, or in any school, for that matter.

In my world of dog shows and training, we always worry so much about what we teach our dogs—to stand, to move, to heel, to sit, to behave—and that’s a good thing. But as we saw with Scout, what’s far more important is what we learn from our dogs.

So pay attention.