SURELY THERE’S NOTHING MORE DEMORALIZING THAN TO EXTEND your hand in friendship and to have someone take a bite out of it. That’s what happened to Gus the other morning when he greeted the dog down the road, nose to nose, nose to butt, same as usual—and was suddenly and viciously attacked with a dreadful sound and Gus on his back, crying out in fear and bewilderment as his acquaintance made an attempt, seemingly, to eviscerate him.

I kicked. I lashed out. I grasped the attacker’s collar—his windpipe if necessary. The cowardly son of a bitch backed off amid cries of “Bad dog! Bad dog!” I found some blood, a puncture wound in Gus’s chest, not more than a scratch but bad enough.

We returned home. Gus hid under the kitchen table. He walked around with his head about two inches off the floor. He refused to eat. The dog was down. And who could blame him? What a miserable thing to happen to anyone. I thought of the natives of Cuba, greeting the Spanish with gifts of food only to be slaughtered in return. I thought of my own attempted friendships as a child with bullies of various kinds. And I thought about my dog—out-alphad by a colleague, shunted out of the gene pool by a former friend.

If you’ve ever been beaten up, you know something primitive takes over. Something existential. You feel bad on a level that goes beyond reason and physical hurt.

I didn’t put him on suicide watch, but I was worried. He wooed listlessly at visitors—oh, he did his duty, but his mind and heart weren’t into it. And there was nothing I could do. Sure, I tried to buck him up. I told him he was a good dog, the best dog, that this was his home, that in this house he would always be top dog. He heard me and was grateful for the support. He came when called. He sat. He went through the motions of fetch. But though I wanted to make it all better, I was only a man. I lacked the authority to counter what had been done to him. Gus had gone through a downer only a dog could understand.

It was a dog thing. Something to do with the sociology of packs, and dominance, and who gets what mate—an ancient, swamp-grass inheritance, like the force that makes them lock antlers at cocktail parties for no apparent reason a subject body cares all that much about.

I anthropomorphize, of course. It’s the only way I can relate. I’m not the Dog Whisperer. I describe Gus’s experience using the same language you hear from victims of muggings and burglaries—the unfairness, the lack of logic or reason, a world nobody wants to live in.

It takes awhile to recover. But Gus has made progress. You can keep a good dog down. Now I find myself thinking how much I would miss him if he were gone. How invested I am in his spirit. And it goes both ways. When I’m feeling down because someone has stuck a tooth in my ribs, Gus shows concern. He gives me a lick in the chops, more than I necessarily desire.

In other words, Gus and I have an emotional investment in each other. Something you expect between friends, but between species it’s a bit of a miracle.

This morning I took a stick down to the water, and he seemed to show some enthusiasm. “Woof!” I said. “Woof, woof!”

“Good dog,” I replied, relieved and grateful at the same time. “Good dog.”

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