I must admit I am not a dog person, but I don’t hold affection for dogs against those who are. In fact, some of my closest friends love dogs. My sister-in-law stops at any dog she meets to have a conversation. My husband used to carry fancy German dog treats with him when he went into town. In fact, we once had a dog for a little while, a Lakeland terrier. But Woody had a fatal run-in with a motorcycle, and after that we stuck to herbivores. But whether you’re a dog person or not, I predict you’ll love “Fifteen Dogs.” It’s completely changed the way I look at dogs.
Here’s the premise: Brothers Apollo and Hermes, the Greek gods, have just left a bar in Toronto. Walking along King Street, they are chatting about the nature of humanity….
—I wonder, said Hermes, what it would be like if animals had human intelligence.
—I wonder if they’d be as unhappy as humans, Apollo answered.
—Some humans are unhappy; others aren’t. Their intelligence is a difficult gift.
—I’ll wager a year’s servitude, said Apollo, that animals—any animal you choose—would be even more unhappy than humans are, if they had human intelligence.
And the bet is on. By chance, the gods are walking by a veterinary clinic, where in the morning more than a dozen dogs are to be spayed, put down, or otherwise treated.
—Shall I leave them their memories? asked Apollo.
—Yes, said Hermes.
With that, the God of Light granted ‘human intelligence’ to the 15 dogs who were in the kennel at the back of the clinic.
It doesn’t take long for one of them to figure out how to unlock the simple latch that opens their cages, and then to push out the door. Suddenly they are free.
At the front of the book is a map of the area and a list of “Dramatis Canes,” providing the names and breeds of the dogs, with notes: Athena, “a brown teacup Poodle”; Bella, “a Great Dane, Athena’s closest pack mate”; Lydia, “a Whippet and Weimaraner cross, tormented and nervous”; Majnoun, “a black Poodle.” If there is a hero to the story it is Majnoun, who before long comes very close to being able to speak the language of humans. Or maybe it is Prince, a mutt who composes poetry, which drives several of the other dogs crazy.
The dogs possess all manner of human nature, from antagonistic to cooperative, from poetic to murderous, from devoted to conniving. But (perhaps as with people) not many of them are curious. It is Majnoun who wonders what it means to be human.
“He had been born outside of the human and, so, was ignorant of the implications of a world created by their limitations. What would it be like, for instance, to be unable to distinguish the smell of snow in winter from the smell of snow in early spring? What kind of world was it in which one could not, blindfolded, distinguish the great range in the taste of water or smell when a female was in heat? To be so limited? Inconceivable.”
But he also wondered “what it meant—if it meant anything at all—to be a dog.” One of the best things about this book are the conversations it will inspire among readers. Not only what does it mean to be human, but what is love, how can power be used, how are societies formed, what is the difference between human intelligence and human consciousness.
In “Fifteen Dogs,” it appears the author is using intelligence and consciousness interchangeably. But at a holiday dinner, with Charlie the cocker spaniel making the rounds, there was not full agreement as to what consciousness is at all, and you had to wonder what Charlie was thinking beyond whether one of those pork ribs might eventually be coming his way.