Something I didn’t realize about running a service-based storefront until I owned and operated one is that you end up meeting a lot of people. Over the course of my 14-ish years running School For The Dogs, I determined that some small percentage of people are… a little crazy. But there’s bad crazy and good crazy. Those in the latter category, in my estimation, are usually pretty cool. Every now and then, if I was lucky, they’d end up in another special category: friend.
Comedian and song writer Douglas Widick is kind of in that zone. Thing is, I met him after I had kids, which is a time in life where I’ve found it’s very difficult to have friends who aren’t sleep deprived in milk-stained shirts; who aren’t aware of all the foods that can be consumed from squeeze-y pouches; who don’t have deep thoughts about Ms. Rachel; who can stay awake past 9PM. So, for now, I would categorize our friendship as aspirational (at least on my part).
While Widick doesn’t have kids, he does have Skye, a four-and-a-half-year-old Scottish Terrier he refers to as his“l “baby child.” Because of my platonic crush on him, I will absolutely be going to see his new show tomorrow night, which is a cabaret-style production called From Wolf to Baby: The Creation of the Dog.
I talked to Widick about the show, his lifelong obsession with Scotties, and the origins of his surprisingly sincere meditation on the history of the ongoing human-canid love affair and what it means to be a large man who builds their identity around their non-ironic obsession with their small dog.
So tell me about the origins of this show.
I’ve always wanted to do a show about dogs because I’m madly in love with dogs. I felt like I had something to say about the 10,000-year commensal hypothesis of it all, and then put my own spin on it.
You don’t hear the word “commensal” every day!
I think the commensal hypothesis is the most likely one about how dogs came to be, although I did find an article that was really pushing this idea that we took them, bred them, and were like very active in that role but I think there’s more to the story.
For readers who aren’t as nerdy about this stuff I feel like I should explain that the “commensal hypothesis” is the idea that dogs self domesticated— that the less fearful wolves were the ones that lived closer to the Paleolithic settlements and were able to access people’s scraps, and that easy access to calories resulted in generations of progressively more friendly individuals who ultimately benefitted from human care, etc.
Right. It’s like, you just killed a mastodon, but you can’t finish it all. So, what do you do? You can’t flip a coaster--it’s not Fogo de Chão. And then there’s this pack of wild wolves who walk up and they’re like “Can I have mastodon scraps?” And you say, “No!” And then they look at you with big eyes and they’re like, “But I’m hungry!”
Okay, I think I like your explanation better!
But as I was learning more, I was like, “Oh wow, no, this goes way back further — to when we were both tree dwellers 30 million years ago.”
So I have a part in the show about how we got from wood-dwelling animals who were denning together to them being these little babies in our homes who are like, “Hi, mommy.”
I talk about it in the song called Club Wolf, which is like the hottest nightclub of 10,000 BCE. (Widick starts singing in a German accent, a la the Emcee in Cabaret.)
As we travel in packs, we find bits and scraps of bones that we treat as our snacks. When passersby see us, we bark and snarl like crazy. But we know in our hearts that we’re just a baby… Everyone is VIP, but you have to pee right near that tree.
That last line is my favorite, I think. What was your research process like?
I got a lot out of the big National Geographic dog issue they seem to re-release every few years. I was really surprised to learn about the GTF2I gene, which is in almost all dogs, and how their hyper-sociability is potentially connected to that. That was a “whoa” moment for me — like, wow, all dogs might have this one thing that makes them dog-like.
Tell me about the number with all the dog breeds in it.
I’ve always been shocked by how many dog breeds there are, and by the variety in size and shape, and how much we’ve interfered with their natural evolution. So I wanted to do a song that might genuinely blow people’s minds about how many dog breeds there are.
It’s inspired by the “Countries of the World” song from Animaniacs, which I think was itself inspired by the Mexican Hat Dance. I included about 200 breeds, including some from the Foundation Stock Service, because I was shocked Jindos weren’t on the official AKC list.
Jindos?
Yes! I’ve fostered six of them through Korean K9 Rescue. My vet sent out an email about fostering and included the cutest photo I’ve ever seen in my life. I guarantee they were flooded with inquiries after that email.
We didn’t end up fostering that dog, but then we were on their list, and now they text us all the time: “Want to foster this one? Want to foster this one?”
We pick them up the day they land from Korea. They’re zonked. They land and they’re like, “Where am I?” Like David After Dentist.
Tell me about some of the fosters.
The first was Sunni. She was on a kill list, and Korean K9 rescued her. They do amazing training in Korea before the dogs come over. Sunni absolutely broke our hearts because we were so in love with her. She was very fearful, and then she started showing her personality and immediately got adopted.
Then there was Soda, who now has more followers than I do on Instagram because her dad is an influencer. She has over 10,000 followers and she doesn’t follow us back. The nerve.
Then Oakley, who had a very special wee-wee and liked to pee-pee all over the apartment. He also had extreme separation anxiety, poor guy.
Then Haru, who almost dislocated my shoulder with how strong she was on walks.
Then Britney, who had wildfire burns all over her body but was an absolute trooper. She protected her pups in a wildfire in Korea.
And the most recent was Zokpa, which means red onion in Korean.
But your favorite breed is still the Scottish Terrier?
Yes. For my whole life. There’s a whole section in the show about Skye and Scotties. I’ve just always been completely fascinated by them.
Skye is my baby child.
She’s also your first dog as an adult, no? How has having a dog changed your life?
It’s changed the way I relate to New York. You always have something to come home to. Without a dog, there’s more of this feeling of, “Okay, we’re going out, we’re taking on the city.” But with a dog, you see the city through your dog’s lens. Part of that means you have a new relationships with the filth, because they’re sniffing the filth, but it also makes you yearn for them to have more free nature space. I’m very aware of the lack that they experience.
How has Skye been as a foster sister?
She’s been the best foster sister. We were worried because she’s a feisty little Scottie, but it ended up being so good for her. She’s been loving it.
One thing I like about the show is that it’s genuinely informed by dog-training and animal-behavior ideas without feeling preachy.
Well, my brother and my future sister-in-law are both marine-mammal trainers, and their whole thing is that it’s harmful to think of animals as people. You have to think of them on their own terms if you actually want to be helpful.
My brother had a German Shepherd who was immaculately behaved, and he would always say, “You have to think about it from their terms, not yours. Don’t anthropomorphize them.”
That really stuck in my head.
“Big Man, Tiny Dog” is the closing number, yes? I know you’ve been doing that song for a few years. What kind of reaction has that song gotten?
People always love it. I even did it in Scotland (at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival), and people were like, “Oh yeah, that’s a real thing.” There are a lot of large men with small dogs, and anything with contrasts is going to be fun.
It’s a song where I’m really mocking the other extreme of pet ownership — the people who have the dog version of a midlife-crisis car. Sometimes it’s not even big dudes. Sometimes it’s guys saying, “Don’t look at me — look at this giant dog instead.”
Will Skye be at the show?
No, they don’t allow dogs, which I’m actually upset about. I need to find a dog-friendly venue for the next time I do it.
What do you hope dog people get from the show?
I hope it’s funny and surprising. It’s not just dog facts. It’s also personal. It’s about Skye, my lifelong obsession with Scottish Terriers, fostering, how dogs got here, and how ridiculous and beautiful the whole thing is. Because really, I just cannot believe how perfect she is.
You can get tickets for From Wolf to Baby: The Creation of the Dog here. It’s at 7PM on Tuesday, May 26th at Caveat, which is at 21A Clinton Street in Manhattan. Get tickets. Hope to see you there!
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