Lizard Dundee

God rest ye merry, gentle reptiles.

Dogs and humans evolved together. We learned, genetically speaking, to complement each other and share a deeply meaningful symbiosis, as well as food. Never is this relationship more apparent in my house than during lizard season.

I, being the man of the house, am disposed by my DNA to lift my feet off the floor and climb onto the tallest available furnishing whenever any small, quick, crawly creature enters the picture. This is not a reflection of my bravery. Rather, it is a reflection of each and every one of my ancestors. They all—ALL—survived long enough to procreate, largely because they evaded mice and cockroaches underfoot, plus every other creature comprising less than 0.1% of their total body mass.

These ancestors o’ mine were able to ensure their bloodline would continue precisely because they had dogs whose own evolutionary conditioning taught them to go ballistic at the mere distant rumbling of a UPS truck. And also at the sight of a lizard.

It is high lizard season at our house. As in, high season for lizards—not a season for high lizards. High lizards would be too sluggish to survive my 83-pound puppy dog, Ryzhik, who has decided that hunting lizards is his life’s passion.

I will never know how many lizards my dog has caught because they digest too fully. Nor will I ever see him hunt to his heart’s content, because this drive appears insatiable.

But in this endless quest, I get to witness pure joy. When Ryzhik spies a lizard through the window, or a wayward blade of grass that COULD BE a lizard, or a rock that a lizard likely once stepped on, he comes closer to achieving human speech than some humans I know.

Nothing else inspires this level of vocalization. Not his favorite dogsitter. Not his favorite dog. Not a pork chop I picked up off the floor before he could get to it. Not a whole brace of rabbits. Not even all of these at once.

I always let him out. How could I not? He would dismantle the door if I ignored his pleas. Then he smashes up my selective attempts at landscaping in pursuit of the lizard, who by this point has ditched his tail for the fourth or fifth time and knows Ryzhik can’t fit under the shed no matter how hard he runs at it.

Nothing can deter him. Nothing, that is, but our ancestral evolutionary bond.

You see, after one of our intense monsoon rains, Ryzhik and I went on a walk. Ryzhik was on leash, because he would chase a string of lizards from here well into California. I stepped on some relatively solid mud, and then I stepped into quicksand. I sank right up to my knees.

I’ve watched just enough cartoons to know that this was a critical moment in my own survival. I could have sent Ryzhik for help, like Lassie or other mythical dogs. But he already had a lizard in a bush in his tractor beam. “Ryzhik,” I said. “I need you not to pull me for a minute. I’m stuck.”

And what did he do? He released the lizard from his mind and came to my side. Not all the way, fortunately; he is smarter than I am, smart enough to stay out of quicksand. He did not once impede my desperate attempts at de-suctioning my legs and my shoes from the muck. He seemed, in fact, quite concerned for my wellbeing, because I had not yet fed him breakfast.

This, though—this is why dogs and humans have forged such a perfect partnership. Without Ryzhik, what would I do? Chase my own lizards? Not likely. Once I get out of this mud, I’m climbing up on a countertop, and I’m staying there.