IF GUS IS ANY EXAMPLE, DOGS ARE LIKE ROMAN CATHOLICS IN THEIR LOVE of ritual. Still, on balance I'd have to put him in another religious camp.

As soon as we have done an activity a few times at the same time and place—bone, walk, belly scratch, catch—he expects that it will happen at precisely that time and place every day for the rest of his life, and when it doesn’t, he gives me the Protestant Look.

The Protestant Look is unmistakable, and I suspect it is the source of the expression “to look down your nose at someone,” for Gus has plenty of nose to look down. The look is neither of disappointment nor rebuke. Rather, it says, I knew you would disappoint me. It was only a matter of time before the truth came out.

There is something so Presbyterian about that look. I remember it on the face of my dad when I had failed at school or performed a misdeed. It is not about what you did, it is about what you are. Having been brought up Presbyterian, I will do just about anything to avoid that look.

We have a cottage, a cabin as it is called Out West, and somehow it has become a tradition akin to the wine and the wafer that I go down to the ocean each morning and evening and throw the stick so that Gus can swim after it. “Let’s go for a swim,” I say, with varying amounts of enthusiasm, after a period of getting the Protestant Look.

“Woof!” he replies. It’s about time!

“Go get the stick,” I say, and in no time he is down the path to his collection. Yes, he has a collection. He keeps it in the same place by the path, and there are usually a half-dozen sticks to choose from—bits of lumber, broken-off branches. I don’t know where he gets them.

Now he is by the water doing the Stick Dance—a manoeuvre in which he digs a long trench in the sand with the stick positioned between what I would call his forearms, an up-and-down motion of the head and a guttural growl similar to the one he does on the carpet on his back during the Dance of Joy.

When I am in position at the water’s edge, he begins a round of serious woofing—Throw it! Throw it right now!—until I have flung the thing as far as I can out into the water. Then one of two things happens. Usually he swims directly for the stick—although “swim” is not quite the right word, and certainly it is not what we know as the “dog paddle.” Essentially he just spreads his paws and keeps walking—except now he is in the water, trucking along. He reminds me of one of those 1950s amphibious cars in which you switched gears and it became a boat.

However, sometimes he can’t quite make out the stick. From his position near the water’s surface, the play of light and waves becomes confusing, and he looks to me for direction. “There’s the stick!” I say, pointing out to sea like Admiral Nelson. “Go out there and get it!”

“Woof!” he replies, and heads out in the direction indicated. God, but it’s endearing. Aye, aye, sir! Ready, aye, ready!

For subsequent throws there’s another ritual in which he pretends to keep me from the stick by holding it down with his paw while growling at me. You can’t have it! No way!

I quickly grab the stick, growling myself. “I have the stick! I have it and you don’t!” Throw it, then! Throw it right now!

And so on. Not very complicated to be sure, but I find it interesting that the whole ritual has been, essentially, choreographed by a dog. If he had fingers, he could probably write a play.

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