Profiling of Dog

Nick and I are looking after a friend’s dog. His name is Zepplin. He’s pretty cool. He’s lazy and noisy, so naturally we’re getting on swimmingly.

I realised that having Zepplin around constantly is an ideal testing ground for future pet ownership. Can we possibly have a dog long-term? Could a dog reasonably expect to live with us? Do dogs get our jokes? Do we click?

Getting a dog is a lot like dating. You can get one based on looks alone, but what really matters is compatibility. You don’t want to wind up in a loveless pet marriage with someone you took home just because they have big brown eyes. You need a puppy soul mate.

Since Zepplin seems pretty content here with us and we think he’s a bit of alright, over the last few weeks I’ve enlisted his help in a series of high-tech personality trait and demographic profiling tests based on my market research studies at uni. This has primarily involved singing to him. None of your fancy Myers-Briggs shit. He’s been very obliging, and while initially confused, I’m pretty sure he’s cottoned on to what I’m doing. He certainly seems attentive when I make him sit still and ask him questions while I pretend I have treats in my hands.

Please note: in no way am I suggesting that Zepplin’s preferences and attitudes are in any way reflective of all dogs, nor am I claiming that Zepplin is representative of his entire species. He is representative of dogs who are available to me right now. And he’s nicer than the dog next door.

Racism

The first thing we needed to sort out was whether Zepplin had any unsavoury takes on fellow human and/or canine kind. Originally this involved me speaking to him in different accents, but this was problematic for several reasons.

1. My impression of my grandmother starts off promising but always winds up Russian.

2. So does my Indian accent.

3. I tried telling him a series of Latvian anti-jokes, but he either didn’t get them or is totally disaffected and thinks laughing is uncool.

Ultimately, all I could determine was that he really likes Irish people. This was further highlighted by his rapt attention when I played him a YouTube clip of Dylan Moran. He watched the whole first half of the 3:45 video before sniffing my knee and walking away, which is a significant improvement on his reaction when I attempted to show him a clip from the 1986 ‘My Little Pony’ movie. I suppose it’s also possible he doesn’t like animated movies.

Anyway, I concluded the reason I was lacking in definitive results was that I’d been conducting this aspect of the study entirely in English. It was unfair and ethnocentric of me to assume that English is Zepplin’s first language, and so I decided to try things on his level.

I got on to this super-awesome website I ACTUALLY had to use at uni that lists the words for animal noises in selected different languages, WITH AUDIO. It’s pretty great.

I played Zepplin all the ‘dog’ noises it had to offer, while I stared intently at him to take note of his responses and Nick stared intently at me to work out what the fuck I was doing. My findings are as follows:

• Japanese: he stared at me.
• Korean: he rolled onto his side. Looked at me balefully.
• Spanish: sat right up and gave me accusing glare.
• French: blinked.
• English: took a deep breath I assume was a sigh.
• Syrian: I played three times in a row because it seemed to be putting him to sleep, but then Nick fed him a piece of steak and ruined it.
• He is completely indifferent to Taiwanese and Arabic dogs.

Given my improved success rate with his reactions, I played him a few different cat noises to see which cats interested him most in terms of chasing capability. There is a black cat down the road he really likes and a ginger one next door he is wary of, so I think he judges cats based on individual merit. Which is nice.

He was actually indifferent to all cat noises EXCEPT Taiwanese and Arabic. He runs around the house looking for phantom Taiwanese cats, and Arabic cats make him chew his own leg for a bit.

Basque pigs make him wander around looking for whatever the hell that noise is. He likes Arabic roosters.

Side note: the Arabic donkey noise sounds like someone about to say ‘Oh no you didn’t.’

Conclusion: Happily, Zepplin does not appear to have any xenophobic qualities. He is also very patient.

Religion

I asked Zepplin what he thought of secular humanism. I was holding my hands out and wiggling my fingers to combat the aforementioned attention span. He sniffed both of my hands, stared at me, and then walked away.

Given his interest in only my two hands and what they had to offer (nothing), I assume that Zepplin is given to binary thinking, leading me to believe that he is preoccupied with the dichotomy of good and evil. When coupled with his disapproval of my lack of reward or sacrificial offering, it can be determined that Zepplin does subscribe to a religion of some sort. But he’s not all in-your-face about it, so that’s okay.

As to which religion, I’m not entirely sure. As mentioned, he’s reluctant to discuss it, so I can only guess based on his everyday behaviour. Certainly nothing that places restrictions on what he can and can’t eat; I saw him eat a bug only a few hours ago. He also really hates strangers coming to the house, so that rules out anything with pamphlets and door-knocking.

I can at least presume that he isn’t homophobic. Anyone who spends that much time and attention on his own genitals can’t possibly have a problem with what anyone else does with theirs.

Conclusion: Zepplin is a non-fundamentalist follower of an undetermined religion with liberal leanings.

Sport

He doesn’t know the snow dance and shows no eagerness to learn.

Conclusion: Well, neither do I.

Social Media

Zepplin is a Facebook slut. Or he would be if he had Facebook. For dogs, trees are kind of a smell-based news feed, and when on his daily walk Zepplin has to stop at EVERY TREE. EVERY SINGLE ONE. Sometimes more than once, in case he missed something. He needs to pee on absolutely everything, and that includes grass, plants, the pavement, and posts. He will occasionally lift his leg in the guise of peeing, and not actually do anything. I think this is the dog equivalent of ‘liking’ something.

Conclusion: Facebook addict.

Music

I thought it was important to work out whether we had similar taste, or at least tastes that overlapped, so we didn’t argue about what we played when people came over. He doesn’t seem to mind me playing Triple J, and likes live sets because it feels like he’s THERE, ya know?

• The Spice Girls’ ‘2 Become 1’ scares the crap out of him. He backs away barking frantically. He likes it even less if you sing it to him as an a cappella duet.

• He does like being sung Burt Bacharach. He will lick your hands delightedly and sit down watching you in thrilled enjoyment. I’m not actually exaggerating.

• Playing him Tegan and Sara’s ‘Closer’ while singing and dancing makes him really happy and he joins in. Sadly, it over-excites him and he needs a nap soon after.

• If you sing him Martin Solveig’s ‘We Came To Smash’ he gets so excited he hits his head on the coffee table and knocks over water bottles with his mad tail-wagging. Nick then tells you to stop breaking things and you stop singing to him because he wouldn’t admit he did it.

• He is as sick of that Flux Pavilion/Childish Gambino song as I am.

• He seems to really like Sigur Rós, but I’m not sure if that’s just because he thinks there are singing kitties hiding somewhere.

Conclusion: Zepplin and I have pretty similar taste. I’m sure he’ll come around to 90s girl-pop once I make him watch ‘Spice World’.

Vices

I wanted to gauge whether he was a wine or a smokes kind of guy. Obviously I didn’t actually GIVE him either of them, because a) it would constitute animal cruelty and I’m pretty sure it’s illegal, and b) it would be a criminal (HA) waste. As discussed above, Zepplin eats bugs and has a less-than-sophisticated palate.

I held out a bottle of wine and a packet of cigarettes and asked him which he would take with him to a desert island. He stared at the bottle, sniffed the pack, and then wandered away. This was a pretty clear answer.

You know that thing where you wet your finger and run around the rim of a wine glass? He DOES NOT like that.

Conclusion: Teetotaller. But he doesn’t mind that we’re not.

This is as far as I got before I decided that if we got a dog like Zepplin, I’d be pretty damn happy. He’s a cool, tolerant, slightly ungainly guy. If he could drive, he’d probably have a really sensible car, but he’d be a MACHINE on the dance floor. Bonus: he loves naps.