Politics don’t interest me. I’d say that’s true for most dogs, only dogs don’t generalize. We say what we see – and see only what we need to. This practice works perfectly if life-satisfaction is your goal. Dogs post happiness scores higher even Finlanders. Jane and Carll try to be happy, want to be, often are, but certain human peculiarities frustrate their purpose. Most distressfully, they compare – now to then, here to elsewhere, themselves to others or their younger selves or to some dream – and when the comparison disappoints, as comparisons tend to, they get sad, even angry. I know this because unhappiness emits both a timbre and stench. You can hear and smell sadness if you’re a dog.

Since politics don’t interest me, I wouldn’t mention them, only the happiness of my supervisors does interest me. The happier they are, the more I get cuddled, played with, “snuck” treats. I cage snuck in quotes because that’s (ridiculously) how Carll treats treats, as if they’d been smuggled from a forbidden store. “Don’t tell,” he’ll murmur conspiratorially, as if feeding your dog were somehow illicit. I mean, really.

Dogs don’t require politics to organize their wellbeing. At least we don’t need constitutions, legislatures, borders, treaties, elections, dark money, bribery, and the like. We get along mostly and when we don’t we adjust, no big whoops. Most dogs think the world of me – for good reason: I’m cute, happy, accommodating, humorous, handsome, and adorable. I don’t know whether all dogs value handsome, but Jane and Carll do, so I may have caught the snootiness from them.

Since politics cause Jane and Carll such mishigas, especially since last January, I thought it might be helpful to brush off The Canine Canon of Congregate Comfort – helpful hints to living with kin and kith without killing them.

1. Live and let live. This may seem obvious but for humans some confusion complicates compliance. Dogs don’t care how other dogs are doing – we don’t compare – so aren’t roiled by any notion of less or unfairness. Let Bowzer go his way and I’ll go mine, even if Bowzer’s more pampered or played with. (We’re talking theoretically here.) If Bowzer’s having a hard time, that’s his lookout, not mine. Some Bowzers compete fiercely to board the bitch, but Jane and Carll have surgically alleviated that imperative in my case, for which I’m grateful (I think).

2. Enough is enough. Dogs quit eating when they’re full but some humans, it appears, are unfulfillable, which causes trouble for other humans, whose nourishment they snatch, causing both hunger and resentment. Dogs – I’m pretty sure universally – find this odd. Why would any creature crave more than enough? Such avidity for excess – boasting rights, I’ve heard them called – not only mars the peace, it afflicts the winners with anxiety, dyspepsia, suspicion, hostility and other morbidities of body and soul. Wealth, which so many humans pant for, makes them sick. We dogs may gobble fetid carcasses that upset our digestions, but then we vomit and that’s that. For poor humans this need for more – and more – and more – never lets up.

3. Be glad. I am happy pretty much always unless tired or penned up alone and then I sleep. This strikes me as a sensible approach to the ordeal of being. Why fret? Why permit loathsome comparisons to spoil a nice day? And for us dogs, every day is nice because there is no other, so none preferable to the one we’ve got.

I offer these suggestions without the least hope of being listened to. Humans yap so much they can’t hear what they’re being told.