Big production number.

Yesterday I jokingly joshed in a jocular way about the useless of dogs. But there was something to the topic. A friend of ours does not understand the idea of pets, and asked why we would even have one. That was before we got the second one, so I guess we're twice as confusing now.

Weeks like this make me wonder, too.

Not that the dogs were getting into trouble. For the most part they have been very good. Little dog has been his usual fun-loving self. The problem was that the big dog, Tralfaz, hurt himself by accident last week and had to be rushed to the vet. (Pro tip: Call the vet's office and tell them you're coming. I had read that tip just the week before and it was a lifesaver.) He was bleeding like crazy. There was blood everywhere, on the floor, on the path to the car, in the car, on a trail to the office and into the exam room and all over the exam room floor. I was surprised he hadn't passed out.

It reminded me of the scene in Twenty Years After, Alexandre Dumas's sequel to The Three Musketeers, in which Mordaunt executes Charles I while Athos is concealed under the scaffold. When the royal head is severed, Athos is deluged by a "crimson cataract" (some translations are more vivid). There was a lot of blood.

Fazzy will recover, I trust, but our return visit had the vet go "Ick!" when looking at the wound -- never a good sign -- and prescribe a huge bottle of big-capsuled antibiotics for him. Three pills, twice a day with food. It is very hard to give a dog a medication that he can't chew. Fazzy behaved poorly at the vet on this follow-up, and even worse with his first dose of pills. This is going to be another long week.

So the question emerged: Why the dogs? They offer protection, sure, but we have an alarm system for that, plus we don't have a whole lot of valuables anyway. And the dogs really have no other purpose.

What it comes down to are the things I heard so often growing up. "I can't be bothered" was a common one from the older members of my tribe, when asked why they didn't do something, or why we didn't do things other families did. "I can't be bothered." "Too much trouble." "You know how much work that is?" "Everything with that is a big production number."

Do people still know what that phrase means? Members of my family who grew up during Hollywood's golden age knew a big production number as a large set piece in musical films where a cast of thousands danced and sung their hearts out on elaborate sets. A big production number was a lot of trouble to film and cost a huge amount of money.

Dogs are not a big production number, but they are a continual source of duty. Are they worth the trouble? For that matter, are children? Some will grow up to support their parents, but will most of them do that these days? It seems the goal of children now is to run as far and fast from home as they can, spurning their folks' beliefs and values, or, on the opposite end, to stay in the cellar like a mushroom and continue to be a drain on the family forever.

Everything is a pain in the ass. Fish? Gotta clean the tank. Pool? Gotta clean the pool. Car? Don't get me started. House? Kill me now. What isn't a load of trouble in life? Is the only path to happiness that of a monk? Or of Diogenes, who was thrilled when he threw away his cup because he realized he could cup his hands, and so didn't even need that sole possession?

This is one of those thread questions, a little thing that you tug on and next thing you know everything starts to unravel. But I think I can snip it, at least to my own satisfaction.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is popular because it makes sense to us, as many things in psychology don't. When we get above the bottom two categories, for basic necessities and security, we enter into those needs that have to do with love. And that's the answer. 

I don't mean "love" in the two senses that it's often bandied about these days -- political love, which is a flag meant to express hate for others, or love solely related to the disposition of one's genitalia. I mean love from the highest (agape) to the lowest (sub-human), as C. S. Lewis discusses at length in his brief and wonderful book The Four Loves. Note that the sub-human love here doesn't refer to Cro-Magnon man love, but love for that which is not itself human -- which would include trivial things like model trains or movies, or great things like one's country. He addresses this love in his book but it is not one of the four, those being affection, friendship, romantic love, and love of God. But for the sake of my point today, it's all love, and it all takes us out of our purely selfish state.

Love is worth a big production number. Love is worth going through trouble that you don't have to go through. Even in my family, which seemed dedicated to the idea of not being bothered with stuff, you'd hear plenty of things like "It's different when it's blood" and "Charity begins at home" and "You do things for your children." Not the noblest, most Christian sentiments, but they express the point that when you love, you do. You accept the responsibility. You go to the trouble.

And that means even on days when it's no fun, and they do nothing that makes me happy, the dogs are worth the trouble. If I threw them out when they stopped being cute, or started costing me more money that I'd expected, then it was never love. And that's one of two dangers that pop out right away, that I may misjudge my motives, and that I may be led captive by my possessions. I may think I love fish until I get so tired of cleaning the tank that I let it stay until the little punks are floating upside down. I may love my big house but spend all my time slaving to pay for it and keep it up, ignoring more important things.

I like to say that if it can't drive you nuts, it isn't love. But not everything that makes me nuts is love. I must know what I love and not abandon it. Then I might be happy.