A time will come in the life of every father — it’s as inevitable as rain in the tropics — when his children will break precedent and show up at dinner without being called, some having just had a haircut and others having put on clean clothes and washed their hands without being asked, and, with their mother acting as their lawyer-in-fact, inform the aforementioned father that they desire to get a dog.

There are ways to defend against this. One experienced father of my acquaintance used to carry around in the pocket of his jacket a small envelope of Acme Hiving Powder, and at the mere mention of the word “dog,” he would, while his children were glancing elsewhere, rub a small amount onto his wrist. When they paused in their pleading, he would thrust his inflamed and itching epidermis at them and say, “See, I get hives even at the mention of the word ‘dog.'”

Alas, the more typical response is to negotiate, starting with the immortal question, “And who’s going to walk this dog?”

I am personally acquainted with one father who fell for this temptation. He informed the children that he would not walk the dog, that he would not feed the dog, and that he would most decidedly not clean up after the dog if the dog did you-know-what on the new Persian rug.

Gilbert & Sullivan couldn’t have written a more rousing chorus than the one that greeted his ears. “We’ll feed the dog. We’ll take care of the dog. We’ll clean up after the dog. You’ll never have even to see the dog,” is the way it went. This was followed by the lawyer-in-fact explaining, “Children need a dog.” The father might respond, “That’s a redundancy.” The assemblage at dinner will take offense. The father can then fib, “Oxymoron, I meant it’s an oxymoron.”

Then one of the girls will look at the father and say, “Oh, pleeeaasse, Daddy. I never wanted anything so much in my life. I need one true friend. …”

The dog will be brought home with great ceremony. The youngest one will be dancing on the stoop, and the boys will be lugging in the vast truckload of equipment that comes with even the puniest pup. The crate, the leashes, the collars, the various foods (which cost more than a meal at the “21” Club), the medicines, the documentation, the books, the brushes, the bags of bones, the toys, the liquid that gets sprayed on the rare Persian carpet where the dog did the you-know-what so that he won’t do the you-know-what on the same place of the rare Persian carpet again.

The wise father will, at this point, smile at the dog and then announce to his wife and children that he’s been called away on a business trip. Then he will be advised to slip into town and take a room at his club. There he would be well advised to lurk for several days. I know of one father who, failing to take such a precaution, promptly found himself living in an open sewer, and instead of being awoken at 8:30 a.m. the following day by the chirping of birds, he was startled out of a deep slumber at 5 a.m. by a baying from the kitchen.

Here the standard move is to traipse into the room occupied by the daughters and say something like, “Goooood morning, my daughters. The little doggie seems to be awake and needs to be taken out for a walk.” This will be met with silence or, if not, the gentle temblor of a snoring child. One can try threatening to splash a glass of ice water on one or both of the sleeping daughters. It will be met with the patented falsehood, “Please daddy, just this once. You promised to walk the dog sometimes . ..”

Then the daughters will drop back into a coma, and the father will be left with a choice. Does he want to take the dog for a walk or does he want to live in a cesspool?

The unsuspecting father will, standing there in his daughters’ bedroom, feel a sense of surprise, of having been caught off guard or miscalculated. This is how it begins. The betrayal. The degradation. The start of the long decline. The father will take the mutt for a walk, and then he will, alone in the empty street at 5 a.m., start talking to the dog.

It might be, “Well, Fido, they’ll take you for a walk tomorrow.” Or, “Pooch, how in Sam Hill did this happen?” or, “This afternoon, you mongrel, you’re going back.” After the little doggie has done his or her business, the father will return to the house and make some coffee and retreat to his study with the morning newspapers. He will feel fine, even virtuous, leaning back in his favorite leather chair, leafing through the news, jotting down his thoughts, sending a wire or two, making his calls to Europe. It’s that time of day.

Suddenly, he will detect a pitiful, muted sound, halfway between a sigh and a moan, and the little doggie will poke its head into the study, blink its big eyes, and then slink in and curl up at the father’s feet. The little doggie will sigh and then drift off to sleep and there, in the quiet hours before the start of the day, the father is left — to plot his revenge.