With Smudge In Yard

Love hurts, the old song goes — the ego mostly. Dogs have always known this. For mysterious reasons their owners persist in signifying their devotion by forcing them into stupid hats, wrestling them into Halloween costumes or baby carriages, making them sit still for photos. They pretend they’re people, which dogs find humiliating. But being dogs, they also love love, and so they acquiesce, just for a moment.

My dog wore this exact expression last week, waiting with pained resignation in a chicken outfit in the front yard for my camera shutter to click. My toddler Tommy, in her trick-or-treat duck costume, had this same haircut, the same bangs, a little crooked. The same look of delight.

On the back of this photo, someone has written in shaky old-lady handwriting, “Walter Rockhill (black dog), Delbert Rockhill (white dog).” Rockhill is a family name, so maybe she meant Walter and Delbert were the dogs’ owners, or maybe — I hope this is true — she affectionately attached the surname, like I do with my dog, Daisy Doodle Steffen-Sparrow (she gets a middle name AND a hyphen).

Even more than the pipe, I like the paws, so tenderly touching canine shoulder and knee. I like the freckled belly and the sideways look.

I’m guessing dogs were photographed so often with children in the old days because they were thought to belong to the children, and not because they were thought to be one of the children (which is why I have so many photos of my dog Daisy and my daughter Tommy together). Still, there is a brotherly feeling to this trio with their Huck Finn hats and serious expressions, like they might be contemplating some adventure beginning after the shutter clicks.