A Breed Apart

Loyal and loving, campus canines add an element of simplicity to the complexities of college life

Before I headed to Hanover the summer prior to freshman year, my mother pulled me aside. She looked very serious. "What question are you going to ask girls who you meet and are interested in dating?" she inquired. She was obviously fishing for a specific answer. While I had been worrying about packing enough under wear for my DOC trip, my mom had been pre-planning my social strategies for me. "I don't know—'What's your name?'" I said.

"No," she said. "You're going to ask them if they like dogs."

Now, I never actually used this line. I figured the best it would get me was a strange look and the worst it could lead to was a beer tossed in my face in anticipation of a rude punch line. My mother, however, had touched on something fundamentally true: If you didn't get along with dogs, you weren't going to get along with her son.

Dogs had been omnipresent in my life before college. Our first dog came from my grandmother s farm. Mike was possibly the most fantastic animal I ever lived with. He preferred sleeping in snowdrifts to lounging inside, was friendly and playful, and I once saw him drive off a rabid fox who was threatening my outdoor play time. This dog was all man and then some.

But there were others as well: Corgis, Labs, Jack Russells, Chesapeake Bay Retrievers, Bouviers and American Water Spaniels.They were not only companions, but workers. I grew up in the cornfields of Illinois, hunting waterfowl and upland birds, and came to appreciate dogs who could make 100-yard retrieves breaking ice or point and hold a grouse in thick brush.

When I visited Dartmouth as a junior in high school, I was immediately struck by the presence of dogs on campus. I'm not sure I asked it, but the inevitable question was posed to our backward-walking tour guide: "So what's with the dogs?" We were told the legend that someone had made a donation with the provision of allowing dogs to roam anywhere on campus. If I had any doubts before, the concept of a campus where dogs could join you in class sold me on the school.

Once enrolled, I had the privilege of meeting a whole cast of Dartmouth dogs on campus. Most notably, there was the trio of dogs in my fraternity, Psi Upsilon. There was the snooty eldest son, who thought the sun rose and set over tennis balls. There was the dim yet lovable new blood who I once saw flee in terror from an inflatable beach ball, and there was the truculent golden retriever who looked more like some sort of lion hybrid than a dog. The fraternity dog is a rare breed, handcast for the fine art of taking it easy. They were usually even-tempered, whether it was finals time or a Wednesday night. And nothing was better than returning from an off-term and receiving a slobbering, tail-powered greeting.

I had some friends who had dogs. There was the couple whose senior-year purchase of a black Lab earned the dog the title of "Love Puppy" from a friends mother. Frog the dog, a majestic Weimaraner, made occasional appearances in one of my creative-writing classes. There was what looked like a mini-Doberman Pinscher who lived, illegally, in my girlfriends dorm. It used to show up in Sanborn so keyed-up that it would run manic laps around the library, dodging footstools and people with teetering teacups. There were dogs who were just around to romp for Sophomore Summer. I played football on the Green once with a couple of guys and a chocolate Lab who cut-blocked me in an open field dash for the end zone. Inevitably, every spring there was the übiquitous "guy with a puppy" who walked around campus tailed by a big-pawed fluff ball and the ensuing herd of cooing women—undoubtedly a fine pool of eligible mates in my mother s eyes.

Dogs seemed to make the campus more alive, more eclectic. There is a vibrancy that comes with being around dogs, their innumerable personalities, attitudes and demeanors mimicking the diversity of the campus. With all the complexities of college life and its relationships, it was refreshing to be around beings who were happy simply to be fed and played with occasionally, and who gave in return their undying love and loyalty. You broke up with your girlfriend? The dog still loves you. You ate it on a big paper? The dog couldn't care less. When graduating seniors in my fraternity passed down their dogs, men who I thought were incapable of outward emotion cried like babies. A professor's warm greeting of an errant dog during a lecture said more about the quality and caring of her teaching than any blurb in the course guide could tell you about her class. The Green in early spring without dogs playing Frisbee would seem empty; Thayer dining hall without a dog on its steps would be forbidding.

Of course, I wanted my own dog. Living situations and the conundrum of what to do with the dog when I went away to sailing regattas over weekends prevented me from getting one. Senior year culminated, all too quickly, with graduation. But one of the luxuries of my postgraduation job, teaching English at a boarding school near Chicago, was that I could have a dog live with me on campus. After some searching I chose a Bernese Mountain Dog puppy. Anyone unfamilliar with this breed should imagine a tricolored, blunt-featured plush toy. It's just about the cutest thing going.

Those of us recent grads who are banished to the nether regions of the United States (read as anywhere outside the greater Boston or New York area) are starved for the companionship of fellow Dartmouth alums, or at least a constant reminder of our time there; my dog needed a Dartmouth name. Occom, Baker, Ripwood, Wheelock, Rosie, Hovey and Ledyard were ail in running, but in the end I chose Mascoma, the name of the lake where I'd practiced throughout my college sailing career.

Mascoma is a wonderful companion and a reminder of my time at Dartmouth. She comes to class every so often with me, where questions about her name introduce duce opportunities to wax sentimental about my college days and recruit future Dartmouth men and women. In the dorm she makes rounds with me at check-in and gives a cursory wag and sniff when I say goodnight to the boys. She's slowly gaining the laid-back character inherent to the fraternity dog: the nonchalance that comes from being surrounded by attention. She recently got her first Dartmouth collar. I'm eagerly planning our first trip back, hoping it will be warm enough for her to take a dip in her namesake.

Recently my girlfriend, Lindsay Bowen, a fellow '00, met the dog for the first time. I wasn't too hesitant about the meeting because I knew Lindsay was a dog lover. While I hadn't taken my mom's advice directly, by the time Lindsay and I had met I knew better than to get seriously involved with a cat person. We'll return to Hanover this summer, with the dog, to work during our summer breaks. I figure the Green could always use another dog. And hey, while I won't be trolling for women, I'll finally get to be the "guy with a puppy."

Marcus Coe teaches English and coachesswimming and baseball at Lake Forest Academyin Lake Forest, Illinois.