Today’s word of the day, courtesy of the Words Coach (https://www.wordscoach.com/dictionary), is mansuetude. Pronounced / ˈmæn swɪˌtud, / or / ˈmæn swɪˌtyud / (personally, given that the last syllable opens with a coronal consonant, I would favor the first pronunciation and find the second a bit affected), mansuetude is a noun that means “mildness, gentleness” (https://www.dictionary.com/browse/mansuetude).

According to Etymonline.com, the word entered the English language in the “late 14c., from Latin mansuetudo “tameness, mildness, gentleness,” noun of state from past-participle stem of mansuescere ‘to tame,’ literally ‘to accustom to the hand,’ from manus ‘hand’ (from PIE root *man- (2) ‘hand’) + suescere ‘to accustom, habituate,’ from PIE’*swdh-sko-, from *swedh- (see sodality), extended form of root *s(w)e- (see idiom)” (https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=mansuetude). I may have to come back to sodality another day.

Merriam-Webster says, “Mansuetude was first used in English in the 14th century, and it derives from the Latin verb mansuescere, which means ‘to tame.’ Mansuescere itself comes from the noun manus (meaning ‘hand’) and the verb suescere (‘to accustom’ or ‘to become accustomed’). Unlike manus, which has many English descendants (including manner, emancipate, and manicure), suescere has only a few English progeny. One of them is desuetude, which means ‘disuse’ and comes to us by way of Latin desuescere (‘to become unaccustomed’). Two others are custom and accustom, which derive via Anglo-French from Latin consuescere, meaning  to accustom’” (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mansuetude).

When I was growing up, we always had a dog, and it was always a Kerry Blue Terrier. Kerry Blues are a dying-out species, from what I’ve heard. I haven’t even seen one except a few years ago in the UK. The woman there is the one that told me how they are dying out. Our Kerry Blue was always named Michael, except that the last two my dad had before he died were named Seth and Patrick. Seth was a bit crazy—he used to guard something, usually near a closet, and you never knew what it was he was guarding until you tried to pick it up. Patrick wasn’t much more than a puppy when my dad passed, and I have no idea what happened to Patrick. I’m guessing that my evil stepmother took him even though they were two weeks from being divorced, but I cannot imagine her taking care of and, most importantly, paying for a dog for very long.

When my wife and I had kids, we also decided that we should get dogs. Unfortunately, my wife decided that she needed to choose which dog, and her first trip to get a rescue from the shelter gave us this little, old thing with only half her teeth. We had Sandy with us for years, but our kids never really played with her. We also had a cocker spaniel, black, named Joey (yes, Joey Cocker). He was also a rescue, and it took weeks for him to finally trust us enough to even come around us, but eventually he became a part of the family.

We had two Jack Russell Terriers along the way, Caesar and Calpurnia, though we did not have them at the same time. Caesar was ADD, we think, and he ran away three times; unfortunately, he returned to us only twice. There might have been one or two more, but I can’t remember; as we get older, memory is the second thing to go.

Joey got really sick; he had a total lack of energy. He couldn’t even get down the three steps from our deck to the yard. I took him to the vet. After an examination, including an X-ray, the doctor told me that Joey had an enlarged spleen and was suffering from hemolytic anemia. I asked him what causes that. He said, “It’s idiopathic.” I said, “I know what that means,” and the doctor immediately laughed. He said, “When I was in vet school, we used to say, ‘Idiopathic—the doctor’s an idiot and the patient is pathetic.’” I took Joey home, and he died during the night.

When my kids got out on their own, they started getting dogs. My oldest seems to have a fondness for big dogs even though she has small children. My second daughter has mostly medium-sized dogs, though she did have one larger dog. My third daughter got a rescue dog in the months after a hurricane hit Houston, and that dog came home with her when she finished grad school in Austin. And even my youngest, my son, has gotten a dog.

And this week my third daughter has gotten another dog, a puppy that is only about six months old. Jellybean came to us crate trained. Yeah. Crate trained. So we bought a crate for her, since she is crate trained. She has probably, in the last two days, spent half an hour in that crate. She is pillow trained—she figured out right away how to get on my daughter’s pillow. It’s kind of funny, in a way.

“The connection between human and dog runs deep. Early signs of domestication date back to 33,000 years ago and unambiguously domesticated dogs are common in the archaeological record beginning 15,000 years ago. The pairing makes for a striking case in coevolution — no other species has been so thoroughly integrated into human society. Dogs are our sentinels and shepherds, hunting partners and cancer detectors. And more importantly, to those of us who have had dogs in our lives, they are our dearest friends” (https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/dogs-have-co-evolved-with-humans-like-no-other-species)

What’s the attraction? Part of it is physical; puppies, like babies, have heads overly large for their bodies and eyes overly large for their heads. “Dogs have actually developed new facial musculature in the domestication process — notably, a muscle responsible for furrowing the brow. The resulting “puppy dog” eyes may have helped to strengthen the caretaking response that probably played into our initial desire to associate with canines. Observations at animal shelters have found that dogs who make an archetypically worried or sad expression are adopted more quickly, indicating a probable selective advantage” (ibid.).

The Discover article hints at a lot of scientific evidence that illustrates why humans and canines are so closely linked, and have been for thousands of years. But most people know about how special the relationship is, whether the dog is Lassie or Scooby Doo. “More than half of millennials own dogs per some estimates — and the vast majority of dog owners consider their pets to be members of the family. Even in China, where dogs have been served as food to some people, pet ownership is growing exponentially” (ibid.).

Unless trained to be otherwise, dogs are the model of mansuetude, even more than the “man” who professes to be the dog’s owner.

Today’s image, not surprisingly, I suppose, is of a dog (https://nateschoemer.com/from-pitfalls-to-trust-navigating-the-dog-human-relationship/). And I have to say this: one of the fun things about doing this Word of the Day blog is doing the research, reading the articles or wikis I use. For today, I encourage you to read the articles I’ve used even though I have used fewer than I am wont to do.