WITH A SURNAME THAT APPEARS to combine the qualities of doting and dotty, never has there been a more appropriately named author. Mark Doty tells the frequently harrowing story of his life with Arden and Beau, a couple of long-haired retrievers, one
black, the other golden. There is no shortage of canine literature, most of which would be best employed mopping up unfortunate messes, but Dog Years is an exception in its empathetic portrayal of the relationship between man and his best friend.
Doty is a poet and a professor of poetry and he brings a refined sensibility to the task. The lives of his dogs, although joyously related, are always shadowed by the inevitability of their deaths. Intimations of mortality are to be found in every wagging tail. A third death is woven into the narrative, that of Doty's lover, Wally, who succumbs to Aids.
You may have gathered that this is no frivolous entertainment, but a deeply serious study of relationships between humans and animals. Doty has performed the not inconsiderable trick of considering the world from a dog's point of view without ever stumbling into anthropomorphism.
We feel their exhilaration during a wild walk by the sea, their bewilderment when cars turn out to be made of hard materials. The world is full of pitfalls for the unwary hound. Arden takes a direct hit from a skunk right above his eyes, and he is placed in the bath and basted with tomato juice. "He knows he's ridiculous, the plumed tail droops miserably," remarks the author.
Although unabashedly emotional, this is by no means a sentimental story. As Doty college-hops across America with his new partner, Paul, the two dogs and a pair of cats who (thankfully) play no part whatsoever in the proceedings, they are never far away from another appointment with another vet.
If you've never had a dog, you will be surprised to learn how much effort it takes to keep them on all four legs. There are dark times. On the Staten Island ferry, Doty seriously entertains the idea of throwing himself off with the dying Beau in his arms so that they may perish together. After 9/11, Arden is so traumatised by the experience of being in a Manhattan where the quality of the air has changed into something foul that tranquillisers must be prescribed.
Finally, though, Dog Years is a celebration of the closest relationship man can experience outside his own species. Through a prolonged meditation on his feelings for dogs, Doty comes to some profound realisations about love, life, friendship and death, which are greatly informed by a dog's evident glee in living in the moment.
Perhaps it is a bit much when he collects hairballs from the departed Arden and keeps them in an empty tin of dog food on the mantelpiece, but any man who refuses to go to heaven if his dogs aren't there is OK by me.
The full article contains 507 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
