Crying doggie tears

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This article was published 24/10/2015 (3850 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Call me a sentimental weenie if you must, but there are lots of reasons why I love dogs.

This was running through my mind the other night as I stretched out on the couch and dabbed at my eyes while watching the 2009 movie Hachi: A Dog’s Tale.

Based on a true story, this tear-jerker chronicles the bond that develops between a college music professor, Parker Wilson (Richard Gere), and an abandoned dog.

In a nutshell, a puppy, an Akita, is shipped from Japan to the U.S., but escapes after his cage falls off a cart at a train station, where he gets scooped up by the professor, who takes him home and, despite the objections of his wife, keeps him. Prof. Parker names the dog Hachiko after his best buddy, a Japanese professor, translates a symbol on the dog’s collar as “Hachi,” Japanese for the number eight, which signifies good luck.

Hachi doesn’t do standard dog-related activities, such as playing fetch; but he follows his new master to the train station every morning, then returns to greet him and walk him home after work.

Get ready to grab a box of tissues, however, because, one day while teaching, Richard Gere’s character dies of a heart attack. So there’s Hachi, lying in the snow, waiting for a master who will never return, when the professor’s son-in law finally picks him up.

Every day, the faithful dog returns to the same spot in front of the station and (sniff) waits for his master. The professor’s family tries to look after him but ends up letting him live at the station, where for 10 years, he sleeps in the rail yard at night and keeps watch in front of the station during the day.

This goes on until the last day of Hachi’s life, when the loyal dog, lying alone in the snow, is reunited with Richard Gere, apparently in heaven. For the record, the real Hachi lived in Japan and, after the death of his owner in 1925, returned to the train station the next day and every day after that for nine years.

The point is, this melodramatic movie turned me into a quivering puddle of goo, whereas my wife just complained about having her emotions manipulated.

In the middle of the movie, when I told her to stop grumbling, she grabbed my iPad tablet and used the FaceTime application to make a video call to our daughter, who is at university in Thunder Bay.

“Your dad is watching a weepy movie,” she told our daughter, before pointing the iPad camera at the couch so she could see the wiener dog silently snoozing.

Next, my wife took the iPad into the bedroom to give our daughter a glimpse of our emergency backup dog, Mr. X, a small white mutt who likes to hit the hay early, stretching out on my wife’s side of the bed. Moments later, as I was glued to the doggie drama, Mr. X excitedly raced out of the bedroom and parked himself on the welcome mat in the hallway, where he began staring with laser-like intensity at the front door.

“What’s going on?” I demanded when my wife trundled back into the den.

“I told Mr. X that our daughter was coming home,” she replied with a sheepish grin. “I didn’t mention she isn’t coming home until Christmas.”

What you need to know here is that Mr. X and our daughter have the kind of intense emotional bond you typically only see in the movies. Our pugnacious pet’s little heart is broken when his soulmate is away at school.

“That wasn’t very nice,” I snorted, frowning to convey the notion my wife should probably tell our depressed dog the truth.

Which is when my wife went out in the hall, looked down at Mr. X and gently said: “I’m sorry, buddy, but your favourite human isn’t coming home tonight.”

Mr. X just sat there quietly for a moment, then stood up and sauntered over to the window in the living room, squatted on his haunches and pressed his face up against the glass, staring out at the bus stop our daughter uses when she’s home.

With that, my wife trotted off to bed, leaving me with a box of Kleenex to watch the end of a heart-tugging movie, and a heartsick Mr. X staring forlornly into the darkness outside the picture window.

Half an hour later, when the credits began to roll on Hachi’s story, I scooped up Mr. X, who was patiently keeping vigil at the front window. That’s the main reason I love dogs.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca