What Dogs Steal

A small confession

Let me just confess this upfront: My dog steals food from children.

Not violently or in a frightening way. She just understands something fundamental about small humans: they get distracted by all her intentional displays of cuteness, their grip loosens, and their sandwiches are at perfect snout height. With a wagging tail and a friendly manner, she sidles up to her targets, moving with Border Collie calculation and Waterdog determination. Having taken the food, she lacks even the decency to run away in shame. On the contrary — she maneuvers to eye the child's other hand to be absolutely sure she has secured all available edibles.

Dogs are unrepentant thieves.

But they do not restrict their thieving activities to food…

A lineage of thieves

Pierre was my grandmother's poodle. He lived in the house where I was born before I did, back when my expectant parents moved in with my grandmother and great-grandmother. I don't remember him so well, but I know him anyway, in the way you know the foundation stories of your family. Small, dignified, certain of his place.

Then Mopsy, the Puli, all fierce fluff and quiet devotion. She'd position herself between my father and us kids whenever he raised his voice to scold us. Not aggressive. Just there. A soft growl. A line drawn.

Julie, the Australian shepherd, treated our property line like sacred territory. Watching her patrol was like watching a dragon guard treasure — fierce, tireless, utterly committed.

Toshi the German Shepherd walked me to the corner store when I was small. She understood her job with perfect clarity: accompany the small human there and warn off or demolish any perceived threat, wait outside, accompany the small human home. She never wandered. Never left her post. Just knew what needed doing.

What they're really after

I write fiction about dogs because I'm trying to capture the particular way they steal from us (the food and socks are just an amusing diversion for them).

They LIVE to steal far more important things:

The loneliness that creeps in.

The stillness that turns into anxiety or rigid stagnation.

The worry we carry without knowing it.

The distance between people who should be close.

Every dog I've known has been a thief of that necessary kind.

Pierre stole the quiet emptiness of that old lady house before I was born. Mopsy stole fear. Julie stole danger. Toshi stole risk. My current dog steals my many excuses for staying inside, for sitting too long.

What they leave behind

And in taking these things, they leave something else behind.

Presence. Motion. Safety. Connection. Love. Peace. Joy.

Yes, my dog will steal a sandwich left too near the edge of the counter without remorse. But what she's really after runs deeper. She wants my afternoons. My attention. My willingness to walk out the door and throw the stick one more time. She wants the family to stay together out walking on the trail.

The greatest theft

Dogs are thieves of the highest order. Their greatest theft is taking our hearts without asking, and by the time we notice, it's far too late to get them back.

Which is exactly how it should be.