LIKE COMPUTERS, MOST OF US HAVE A DEFAULT POSITION, A STATE of mind or an emotion to which we gravitate in repose. Parents of grown children, for example, lacking anything else to think about will revert to a state of general anxiety—Where are the kids? It's past their curfew!—long after their kids have moved out and acquired kids of their own. Likewise, lifelong activists slip into a mood of general indignation, while do-gooders begin sniffing about for someone to fix.

Our cats, Bruno and Luna, when not thinking about mice and birds, revert to a Zenlike state of calm watchfulness. For Gus the default position is one we might describe as variations on Joy: No Joy, Joy Maybe, Joy Interrupted and Joy Now.

No Joy is easy to detect because he is asleep or in the No Joy position, staring into space, paws crossed, the only motion a bit of eyebrow work: “No Joy? What did I do or not do?”

With Joy Maybe, Gus is on full alert, tongue extended, tail like a propeller, ears swivelled forward like twin satellite dishes: “Joy, you say? What are we waiting for? Let’s go!”

At the moment of Joy Interrupted, the ears are down, tail down, mouth pursed, snout forward, eyes glittering with incredulity, usually accompanied by a squeak from the back of the throat: “No Joy? You gotta be kidding!”

Joy Now is best observed during the Dance of Joy: paws in the air, wriggling across the carpet with a sound like a muffled elongated “Raoul!” (This often happens in the morning, prewalk, or in the living room when everyone is being warm and pleasant.)

Okay, fine. Get down on your knees and take a look at the dog’s face. That dog is happy. He’s smiling. The same smile can occur while walking or in the car close to home or, well, just about anytime really. And it does your heart good to see it.

Usually. However, as we well know during party season, someone else’s joy is not always a joy to the beholder—for example, behind the wheel of a motor vehicle or expressed as affection for the boss’s personal assistant.

Unshared joy can create a fundamental disconnect that spells trouble. As when the dog in question, following a round of joyful dancing while calling “Raoul” with a beatific smile on his face that would light up a room, tail-wagged an entire bottle of wine and a wine glass off the end table onto the carpet. My response was less than joyful, and there are few moments less edifying than swearing at one’s dog. “How could you do this?” I cried, between other expressions. “Can’t you control your damn tail? How could you be such an idiot?” I shouldn’t have said that. Tail control is one thing, but nothing stings like a border collie like being called stupid. Gus was not smiling when he left the room.

A roll of paper towels later, the stain in the carpet replaced by a stain on the conscience, I called Gus in a conciliatory tone of voice. Wherever he was, Gus was having none of it. Obedience has its place, but so does a dog’s dignity. I finally located him in the bedroom, paws crossed primly beneath the snout, the elongated tail limp and unmoving, eyebrows going like mad. I apologized. Many would find it odd to hear a man apologizing to a dog, but it was the right thing to do.

Opening his eyes momentarily, he gave me a look of undiluted people-weariness, as though to say, “You, my friend, have a lot to learn about joy.”

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