EVERY SUMMER EVENING, toward sunset, quiet anchorages all over America suddenly become busy as dinghies begin ferrying dogs ashore from yachts. The dogs, cooped up all day on small yachts, almost always stand in the dinghy bows, ears pointed forward, tongues flapping in the breeze, panting with eagerness to get on dry land and empty their bladders.
Its the poop parade and its not pretty. It starts with the dreadful, awkward business of trying to get a dog down into a dinghy in the first place, and ends with the equally dreadful, awkward business of trying to get it up, out of the dinghy and back on deck.
Sailing with dogs is such a lot of bother that you have to wonder why anybody would do it. I love animals as much as the next guy, perhaps more than most, but when Im cruising I dont want my choice of destinations and times of sailing to be dictated by an animal whose only ambition is to lift his leg on the nearest beach.
Dogs dont enjoy sailing. They dont care if youre doing two knots or 10. They dont mind if you hoist the spinnaker or not. They dont even know what a spinnaker is. People take dogs sailing because theyre lonely for their dogs, not because their dogs are lonely for them.
If you can afford a boat, you can afford to put the dog in a good kennel while you cruise, or to hire a dog sitter. If you really love your animal, you will do whats best for the dog, not for you. Dont kid yourself that the dog cant live without you. Dogs are pack animals and like to follow a leader but believe me, any leader will do. And if a dogs going to be cooped up with nowhere to go, it surely would prefer to be cooped up on dry land that stays level and doesnt make it seasick.
In the main, dogs wont use a sandbox on board, or even a piece of Astroturf on the foredeck or in the cockpit. Theyll hold in a pee until their bladders almost burst. Theyll hang on to a poo until their eyes change color. They only want to go ashore, find a neatly tended marina lawn, or someones pretty flower garden, decorate it with their internal debris, and scratch the hell out of it. Thats doggy heaven; and the whole process is repeated again at dawn the next day.
If you must have an animal on board then a parrot makes more sense than anything else. The pirates knew what they were doing. Did you ever hear of a pirate with a dachshund, for goodness sake?
And if not a parrot, then a cat. Cats are more compact. They dont need exercise. You can ignore them and theyll ignore you right back, with no hurt feelings. And, best of all, you dont have to take them ashore. Theyll use a litter box. In fact, some will go one step better, and use the head.
I once met one called Pepe who had sailed around the world on a boat called Aqua Viva. His owner, a lawyer, had trained him to sit on the toilet seat by first placing his sandbox there. Pepe never did learn to open the seacock and flush the loo, but nobody was complaining about that.
The trouble with ocean-going cats is that they almost always seem to fall overboard and drown, or else, if theyre females, they run away with some local riff-raff tomcat as soon as they get to port. So, if you have a cat you should try not to get too attached to it because sooner or later youre going to learn that sailboats and household pets are a very poor mix.
Todays Thought
America is a large, friendly dog in a very small room. Every time it wags its tail, it knocks over a chair.
Arnold Toynbee, News summaries, July 14, 1954.
Tailpiece
I would live all my life in nonchalance and insouciance
Were it not for making a living, which is rather a nouciance.
Ogden Nash.
(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)
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