One day in high school, I think it was during my sophomore year, a group of us were sitting around shooting the breeze when the subject of immortality came up.  The conversation eventually progressed to a discussion about whether or not a dog has a soul.  You should be aware that this was a Catholic boarding school for boys, Assumption Abbey in Richardton North Dakota, run by a dedicated bunch of Benedictine monks, so I suppose a topic was more likely to stray  from the hedonistic than at a typical public high school.  I’m not saying we were any better than those publicly educated.  Or smarter. I just think for good or bad the religiously educated are  inclined to have more thoughts with a theological bend. That’s all.  Plus at the Abbey about a third of the kids were seminary students, so the odds of one being included in your conversation were pretty good.  Though they were not undisposed to interject secular subjects, their good judgment tended to tamp down those that seemed to be spiraling toward the perverse.

Two of my best friends emerged as the flag bearers of each position. George, one of those seminary students, believed a dog did indeed have a soul.  Frank, whose general conduct at the time set the standard for someone who should never be allowed near a seminary, staunchly supported the negative argument.  I was in Frank’s camp, but not because he was a particularly good debater.  In fact Frank was our close class equivalent of the West Point Goat, the cadet who graduates last in his class.   With a military cadet, there is usually a lot of luck involved (as well as a some cash- the Goat collects a dollar from every cadet as a reward for the accomplishment).  You just hope after four years you hit the sweet spot academically and still graduate.  Probably the most famous West Point Goat was George Armstrong Custer* and he was no dummy.  He was a notorious prankster and it was all his demerits that earned him last place. That’s kind of how Frank operated.  He studied enough to get by, but knew when to back off and attend properly to his many troublemaking duties.

I have to say Frank held his own, but the reason I agreed with him was what I recollected from grade school.  The nuns at Holy Name taught me only humans have souls and entered heaven.  No dogs allowed.  We didn’t seem to be evolving towards any satisfactory resolution in our debate, so it was ultimately decided that we should seek the council of a higher court, the Abbey principal, Fr. Francis.  He set us straight right off.  It turns out a dog does have a soul.  The catch is it’s not an immortal soul, like ours.  Because we can reason and shit I guess our soul is a lot better.  A dog’s soul falls short of the admission requirement into heaven.

Fr. Francis was very much esteemed in our circle, so I assumed his verdict would satisfy all parties.  I can’t think of another priest that exhibited a sense of fairness and could connect with his students like Fr. Francis.  The way he connected was with the knuckles of a clenched fist, unlike Fr. David who clobbered me with a four cell flashlight.  However, Fr. Francis’s involvement aside, Frank was not about to let the matter drop.

After a few days thinking on it, Frank did concede, but then elevated the logic to a new level and concluded that yes, a dog has a soul, but it was also immortal.  He recalled a story that had somehow slipped his mind during our debate, probably because he had attended to an inordinate amount of hell raising that day.  Long story short, It seems one of Frank’s neighbors knew a fellow who ended up upside down and unconscious in a pick up truck he was driving and this guy’s dog  pulled him from the burning vehicle and gave him mouth to mouth resuscitation.  Well that seemed a little far fetched to me, but Frank says he got the story from an extremely reliable source, so from that point on Frank’s position was dogs have an immortal soul and will join us in heaven.  You have to admit if that story is true that’s a lot of uncanny human-like reasoning to omit from consideration.

To be honest with you that particular high school deliberation was never a big concern of mine then, nor has it been since, until just recently.  I like dogs, but favor those that are undomesticated.  I am particularly fond of wolves, and if it weren’t a violation of a city ordinance I might consider keeping one as a pet because that seems like a good way to get rid of the stray cats that shit in my yard.  But then I’d have to deal with wolf shit, so that’s obviously a counterproductive solution.

My son and his wife have a dog, Alfie, and we occasionally take care of him.  We have a few more boundaries we expect him to observe than his owners do, but Alfie quickly came to understand them and we get along just fine.  He is cute as the dickens but every time I take him outside to do his business I’m reminded why I don’t have a dog of my own.  I was doing just that  two weeks ago when my own opinion of the spiritual side of dogs took a turn.

We had two days of storms that left a solid sheet of ice on the ground that was a quarter inch thick.  I am normally a very careful person, but unfortunately made a rare miscalculation when I took Alfie out to download.  I slipped on a path of river rock in our back yard and about knocked myself out when my lower back smashed down on a soccer-ball sized stone.  I laid on my back disoriented, swearing and groaning in agony.   What brought me to my senses was the sensation of Alfie’s tongue hosing down my face.  He even managed to slobber all over my glasses.   In an effort to escape all the flying fluid, I slowly rolled onto my stomach, letting out another series of profanity-laced moans.  The little fellow must have sensed I needed more attention, so he addressed the situation with a saliva shampoo.

After carefully analyzing my predicament, I managed to crawl back to the house on all fours.  I took stock of things and figured I had better get to an ER.  I had concerns that I might have broken a rib, or even my hip, plus it appeared I had a compound fracture of my right ring finger.    I went to my bedroom to get a warmer jacket, and when I came back out there was Alfie lying prone in the hallway, his chin on the floor and eyes rolled upward with a forlorn look, like he was extending an apology.  He followed me around the house while I grabbed my car keys and wallet, and all the way to door.  He kept his eyes on me the entire time, checking to make sure I was all right.  And basically I was.  At least my ER visit revealed no broken bones.  My finger was just dislocated.  But when I got home three and a half hours later, there was Alfie waiting nervously by the door.

Naturally I was uncomfortable that night and couldn’t  sleep.  I thought about how Alfie had reacted, and remembered the dog story Frank had told me long ago.  It dawned on me that more than likely that dog had not really administered CPR.  The guy the dog saved was probably forced back into consciousness out of fear of drowning in all the saliva.  Mystery solved!  And yes like Frank, I am now a firm believer there will be dogs in heaven, if they are anything like Alfie.  HIs soul must be immortal. My guess is God has some type of heavenly reward in store for an animal with that kind of human-like intuition and empathy.

However, if there is an afterlife, I don’t want to spend it cleaning up a bunch of dog shit.  And I am pretty sure if you see me doing that, I’m in trouble.  God must have determined I didn’t make the heavenly cut.   And by extension, neither did you or all those dogs you see me following around.

*Coincidentally, an Abbey graduate (class of 1962) achieved West Point Goat honors, and like Custer, died on the battlefield (Vietnam).