THIS IS US

Dissing the Dog

Is it my fault that my dog isn’t faultless?

Having a writer in the family is a curse, said Karl Ove Knausgård, who’s most famous, Wikipedia tells me, for a six-volume (enough already) autobiography called “My Struggle.” I’m the writer in this family, and I hereby apologize to the accursed. Knausgård is right, but truth must be told.

One thing about my dog is that he barks hysterically at birds, as though he’d been bullied in middle school by a pack of pigeons and decided then and there that he would spend the rest of his life getting even.

This may be true. We adopted him at five, so we weren’t there for his puppyhood. The woman who’d been fostering him said wasn’t it wonderful, he had only a tiny bark.

Another thing about him is that he shrieks at the sound or sight of anyone using a skateboard. Bikes are OK, baby strollers are wonderful, and he’ll even give a pass to urban scooters, vans, buses and cement mixers. Sometimes, he’ll even allow someone using a wheelchair to go by without remarking on it. But what always ticks him off are skateboards.

Oh, then there are the sirens on firetrucks and ambulances. The minute those sounds of the streets hit his ears, he begins his mournful yodeling, a solo in the concerto of urban cacophony. His…