Hope springs eternal in the canine heart

Hope is such a fundamental human trait, isn’t it? And not just human. As I hope to show now.

It’s hope of spring that gets us through the toughest winter. It’s hope of happiness that drives us into marriage, even to the point that, as Oscar Wilde pointed out, a second marriage like my wife’s to me, demonstrates the triumph of optimism over experience. In the same way, it’s hope of a better deal from society that has us voting for people who offer the promise of an improvement.

Which rather shows how double-edged hope can be. Hope drove voters to go for Donald Trump or Brexit, and though both have not just failed to deliver on their promises, but even made most of the people who backed them poorer and less happy, many still persist in hoping for a great dawn yet to come.

That’s the thing about hope. A great hope can lead to a deep disappointment. Still, it’s the thing that keeps us going when we might be inclined to give up. That makes it fundamental to all human endeavour: who’d educate a child, after all, except in the hope that things can be better for those who learn?

It’s why we have all those fine sayings about hope. 

“Hope springs eternal in the human heart,” is a saying that rings down the ages.

“While I live, I hope”, the Romans said. The English, the French and the Spanish all have identical variations on that theme: “while there’s life, there’s hope”. Of course, the French and the Spanish say those things in their own languages (“tant qu’il y a de la vie, il y a de l’espoir”, or “mientras hay vida, hay esperanza”). Nothing I can do about that, I’m afraid. Foreigners do insist on continuing to speak foreign. Sadly, one of the many hopes yet to be realised, is the Englishman’s that one day the whole world will see sense and start talking English.

What’s interesting, though, is that however essential hope is to humans, it’s just as crucial in other species. And in none so much as in dogs. And in no dogs more powerfully than in our two, Toffee and Luci.

Luci’s a strangely omnivorous dog. Yes, she likes all the things you might expect. Not just obvious dog food, or even cheese or yogurt and the many other things most dogs like. She’s also a fruit bat, banana being far and away her favourite.

Luci collecting yet another piece of banana

She can be upstairs lying on an armchair in one of the bedrooms, but if I peel a banana – why, if I even start peeling a banana – down in the kitchen she will, miraculously, appear by my side a moment later. And it’s hope that drives her, the hope that might perhaps be persuaded to share the precious thing with her. Although, I have to admit, that in this case it’s more of a certitude than a hope, since it’s now become my invariable habit, whenever I decide to eat a banana, to cut some slices off either end to feed her.

Luci will also appear under any table we happen to be eating at. After all, she knows that there’s always a chance that we might be unusually careless, and something might fall off our plates on to the floor. Then it will be up whichever is better placed out of Luci and Toffee to grab it first.

Did you see that lovely message that was circulating on the web some time ago, “the five-second rule [covering the time it’s allegedly safe to pick up and eat food that has been dropped on the ground] doesn’t count if you have a three-second dog”? That’s Luci for you.

Toffee is the one more committed to pure hope, even when it’s far less likely to be realised. I’m forever impressed by how far she’ll go to persuade us to throw a toy for her, even if we’ve already thrown in ten times and told her that, “no, that’s it now, lie down.” She’ll spare no effort to appear endearing. Sometimes, I just chuck it for her, if only to get her to leave me in peace, even though I know it buys me at most a minute or two, until she runs back with the toy and a demand that I throw it again.

Toffee hopeful that endearment will get the toy thrown again

Even more remarkable, she can be apparently fast asleep when I walk into the kitchen, but within seconds she’ll be by my side. Kitchens, you see, are good places. They contain loads of food. A particularly soft human might just be persuaded, by especially sad soft eyes, to send some of it her way. That, to be fair, works less well. I’ve had too much experience clearing up after her when she’s eaten the wrong kind of food (I’ll spare you the details) to keep giving her any of it.

That’s a bit of a Brexit-hope: strong and fervent and ultimately disappointed.

“I was just passing, and heard you were in the kitchen.
I thought I'd take a look and see if I could help with anything.”

“It’s a dog’s life,” we say for an existence that is miserable and painful. I’m sure there are plenty of dogs out there condemned to such lives. Not ours. Their existence is highly enviable, as comfortable or even luxurious as that of a Boris Johnson. In fact, they have something that poor old Johnson can only aspire to for now, though he’s working to achieve it: no one holds them answerable for anything. The Johnsonian ideal.

Still, the dogs keep hoping for more, just like him. Hoping is as much a doggy preoccupation as a human one. It seems that where there’s dog’s life, there’s hope. 

Hope, you see, springs eternal in the canine heart.