Father's Day arrives this Sunday with its usual cast. The dad with the shed. The dad with firm views on the barbecue. The dad with a favourite motorway service station.
We'd like to nominate another. The dog dad.
Not the dad the day was invented for, perhaps. But the one who walks the dog before work and pretends it's for the exercise. Who has opinions on her bed. Who talks to her when he thinks no one's listening. There are more of them than anyone admits, and they come in types.
Here is the field guide.
The dad who didn't want the dog
He said no. He said it firmly, repeatedly, and with the air of a man who would not be moved. He had points. Good ones. The hours, the hair, the holidays.
He held the line right up until the morning he was discovered sharing his breakfast and speaking in a voice that had not previously existed. The dog now sleeps on his side of the bed. He has stopped pretending to mind. If you ask him about it directly he will change the subject, but the photographs on his phone tell a fuller story.
The deliberator dad
He approached the dog the way he approaches anything that matters. Seriously. He read about the breed before it arrived, then read more. He compared the harnesses, weighed up the leads, narrowed the beds down to a shortlist and then a shortlist of the shortlist. Nothing is bought on a whim. Everything is the right thing, chosen on purpose.
It can look like overthinking. It's something better than that. It's a man who has decided this small creature deserves the best of everything, and isn't prepared to leave that to chance. He won't tell you he loves the dog. He'll just spend three weeks finding her the correct bowl.
The dad who gave up his dignity
In every other context, a serious man. He runs the meeting. He commands the room. People defer to him.
Then he comes home, lowers himself to the floor, and conducts a long and detailed conversation with the dog in a register normally reserved for very small babies. Whatever dignity he arrived with, he handed over willingly, some time ago. He does not know you can hear him. It would not change anything if he did.
The rules-what-rules dad
He had a system. No dog on the sofa. No dog on the bed. Absolutely no feeding from the table. The rules were clear and the rules were fair.
The rules are now a piece of ancient history that he will deny ever existed. The dog is on the sofa. The dog has always been on the sofa. To suggest otherwise is to invite a look of genuine confusion.
The Grand-Dog Dad
It is, strictly speaking, his daughter's dog. This was the arrangement. It was always going to be temporary.
That was two years ago. The dog lives with him now, walks with him, watches the football with him, and answers to him before anyone else. The original arrangement is no longer discussed. Some things are better left as they are.
What unites them, under all the bluster, is the same thing. Somewhere along the way the dog stopped being the dog and became the soft spot. And the proof of it is in how a dog dad takes a gift now.
He doesn't want a great deal for himself. Ask him and he'll wave you off. But the dog should have the good bed. The proper lead. The toy that lasts longer than a fortnight. His own comforts he'll happily ignore, but the dog's are non-negotiable, because at some point the dog's comfort became his.
So if there's a dog dad in your life this Sunday, you already know the gift won't really be for him. It'll be for the dog. Which is to say, for him.
He'll say you shouldn't have.
He'll mean the opposite.