I’m put out. Granted, my equanimity may be my most impressive feature (though, among so many, who can choose?). Granted, to kvetch goes against “brand,” the most grievous sin in a consumer culture, where brand is the holy grail. What matters, with the cameras whirring, is not who you are but who you seem. Henry is everybody’s favorite polymathic talking dog – that’s my “lane,” as they say – and essential to my popularity is my amiability. Who would embrace a whiny Fido? In America, whiny dogs get euthanized; whiny blowhards elected President.

Rarely am I put out and then only momentarily, as when Carll force-feeds me those disgusting pills. Just after breakfast! You’d think, if he had half a heart, he’d let me settle into my day, digest my kibble, do my business in peace, relapse into a supplementary matutinal nap (call it my lagniappe, hah-hah). Not a bit of it. First a chokehold, then mandibular angle pressure, if I’ve read my police manuals right, then insertion of a vile-flavored tablet deep into my gullet, then a jaw-clamp to coerce ingestion. Having swallowed, I’m rewarded with a treat – and Carll insists the pill is for my good and he enjoys this as little as I do (yeh, right) – but the indignity! I’d contact the ASPCA or my union rep if they made smartphones for dogs.

Such ethical violations I’m prepared to overlook. But to have my prose dissed! I won’t say by whom – I would if Carll allowed – but he won’t – primum non nocere, yada yada. “Is Henry getting repetitive?” she asked (yes, she, not he, it, they). I mean, really! I do this gratis, as a community service, to alleviate the monotony of Carll (two can play this game), gassing his six hundred words daily for a decade… Name another canine contributor to our communal discourse my equal in pungency, punch or panache. Repetitive? Of course I’m repetitive. Do you expect to hear new news from the pulpit? Preachers wouldn’t repeat if humans learned to behave. Sadly, the Sermon on the Mount remains as pertinent today as when Jesus delivered it. Did you know Jesus was a dog? Scholars are now sure. The Evangelists – and Paul especially – altered his species to make him easier to proselytize. That God’s true nature was Dog struck them (correctly, I think) as a hard sell.

So, yes, repetitive in my themes – non-violence, love thy neighbor, live and let live, relish the moment, don’t fret eternity because there isn’t one, tell the truth – but such a presentation! I’ve reread my thickening oeuvre to doublecheck. Delightful! Much funnier than Carll. Prescriptive – you bet – because humans could use a little dog-sense (like horse sense, only better). Dogs know what’s right, no ifs, ands, or buts, because we don’t think so much. Poor Carll and his kind have thought themselves into a perpetual perplexity. How wearisome Carll’s dithering: “certainty is a redoubt from doubt,” “if you know for sure, you’ve stopped thinking,” “’the only wisdom we can hope to acquire is the wisdom of humility’” – this last by T.S. Eliot, but Carll trots it out so often, you’d think it was his. From Carll’s maundering it appears conviction – about anything – is either crime or shame.

That’s the difference between us: I know what I know, Carll knows he knows nothing. An unbridgeable chasm, you might say, only we are joined by love. Love is no debater. Love precedes and precludes thought. In love’s blurry vision, we are precious for being ourselves. Carll may be a jerk but he is my jerk. So treat him nice, OK?