Rex and the city

>> Louise Bernikow's Bark If You Love Me is light lit for animal lovers

by JULIET WATERS

Over brunch a couple of weekends ago a friend threw out a very disturbing statistic. She claimed that in the Kinsey Report almost 30 per cent of respondents had confessed to engaging in some form of "animal wifery." After double-checking this on the Internet, I have since discovered the number was closer to 12 per cent, which still seemed a little high. My world view was recently restored when I read an article claiming the results may have been a little skewed by the fact that 25 per cent of Kinsey's subjects were prison inmates.

But it was before I'd done my research that I came across Bark If You Love Me, a small paperback subtitled What if Mr. Right Turns out to Have Four Legs and a Tail? Above the title was a blurb from the New York Times asking us to "imagine Lassie wandering into Sex and the City."

Obviously I had certain expectations before I opened her book, none of which were met. To get a better idea of Louise Bernikow's memoir, one needs to do a more thorough job of imagining Lassie wandering into Sex and the City than I did. Imagine instead, Lassie being corrupted by randy girl talk, then rescuing everyone from the perils of cynicism and selfishness with the power of her unconditional love.

Maybe the tale of Bernikow and the dog who rescued her from becoming another ageing New York hipster is just the kind of heartwarming tale we need in these days of terror. Then again, if the trials and tribulations of four sex-obsessed New York women seem especially trivial lately, the trials and tribulations of one dog-obsessed woman probably won't seem much weightier.

Bernikow was not dog obsessed before she met Libro. She was a typical dog-indifferent--even dog-disliking--New Yorker. Her family had never had a dog, believing them to be unclean, alien and meant to live in the country. A poor but successful freelancer who had published in Esquire, Cosmo, Playboy, and Ms., Bernikow had also written a book on women, sex and power. On the surface she didn't seem the kind of person who would be comfortable in the sentimental, mundane world of dog people.

Then one day she found an abused, starving one-year-old boxer with a badly maimed leg. For reasons even she doesn't understand, she took him home. Fortunately he turned out to be remarkably docile and highly trained. Within months Bernikow found herself part of a new community made up of dog park people, homeless men Libro takes a shine to, and a seedy bar Libro drags her to because of a bartender who gives him biscuits.

She gets led into a relationship with a jazz musician with a dachshund named Rex. Sadly it turns out her new lover has a girlfriend on the side. It's a typical New York story: he wants to live with his girlfriend, but she doesn't want to give up her rent-controlled apartment that doesn't allow dogs. He doesn't want to give up Rex. So, he cheats on her at the dog park. In the closest thing to a sick moment, Bernikow throws up on the couple during a chance encounter in a restaurant.

Bark is a well written, often charming story about how the gentleness of animals can do a lot to fill the void that urban life can create. It's also an irreverent but heartfelt account on the unreasonable and unrealistic restrictions that are increasingly being placed on decent, loving dogs. The same friend who brought up the subject of bestiality at brunch also told me about a poster she'd recently seen. "War on Terrorists" was scrawled above a crossed out "War on Drugs," above a crossed out "War on Smokers," above a crossed out "War on Unleashed Dogs." This may be a tiny bonus of the recent troubles, but it might finally give dog lovers a bit of breathing space.

Bark If You Love Me by Louise Bernikow, Harcourt, pb, 206pp, $13.95