Okay, chew on this: what if Fred Trump Sr. gave his Donald a dog rather than all that money?

I’ve heard a lot of people say they don’t trust people who don’t like animals or don’t own dogs, and I usually wince at that xenophobic notion.

I know some lovely people who don’t like dogs and cats, and who have great lives and loving relationships. Life with animals is a choice, not a moral position for me.

It really isn’t for everyone. And lots of dogs would be better off if people who didn’t want them didn’t get them.

In the toxic world of the left and the right, I have learned to be careful about generalizations and labels, since I am so often labeled myself.

Having said that, and as a person who has studied attachment theory relating to people and dogs for years (The New Work Of Dogs), I am drawn to the idea that if Donald Trump had been given animals to care for when he was younger – a dog, a cat, even fish –  instead of millions of dollars, he might not be such a human wreck.

Today, it looks more likely than ever that the Democrats are heading for a landslide. Trump and his followers are now living in delusion, talking only to themselves, just as Hilary Clinton’s supporters did in 2016.

So are the trembling forces of progressivism, haunted by the shadows of the last election, they can’t yet quite own their own strength,  values and beliefs.

We are learning how damaged Donald Trump was as a child, and soon we will learn just how much damage he has done to our country.

It is an appropriate moment to wonder how all of us got into this mess and to consider whether animals could have or can change the course of history.

This is a big idea to consider, and well worth chewing on for a bit.

Dogs are important, but I’ve never thought that one just might be able to save the world.

A thoughtful man named Ed Miller sent me a message this morning that got me thinking about this, and it seemed a subject dear to my heart, as I’ve been researching it, thinking about it and writing about it for a long time now.

“I, for one, support your writings about Trump,” write Ed. “But I think I know the reason why Trump turned out to be as damaged as he is. With apologies to his niece, who is spot on about his psychological tendencies. Trump is the first president in over 60 years NOT to have a dog in the White House. That tells me a great deal about him right there.”

Ed has a point.

But I’d approach the subject in a somewhat different way.

I don’t know that a dog in the White House now would make a lot of difference in Trump’s behavior or policy choices. His soul seems all locked up, hard, angry, and unyielding.

It’s too late, even for a great dog or cat.

Donald Trump is, as Mary Trump persuasively documented, damaged, and has been for most of his life.

Since he sees himself as healthy and strong, he has no reason to seek help in changing.

If children are lucky, wrote Trump in her new book Too Much And Not Enough, “we have, as infants and toddlers, at least one emotionally available parent who consistently fulfills our needs and responds to our desires for attention. Being held and comforted, having our feelings acknowledged, and our upsets soothed are all critical for the healthy development of young children.”

Trump, she writes, had none of those things.

His mother was often sick and unavailable to him; his father was an angry, abusive, and judgmental figure.

Trump was never held accountable for his bad behavior and never learned to deal with the consequences of his actions, traits we can observe for ourselves all too clearly.

His father never gave him the tools to win or permitted him to lose, his favorite son grew up in a wonderland of conflicting realities. On his own, he would have crashed a dozen times, the biggest one yet looming in November.

Thoughtfully raised, he might not have failed at all.

Every time he got into trouble in the family business, his father would write him a big, often a huge check. He grew up without empathy or the ability to manage the hard parts of life.

Even in bankruptcy after bankruptcy, he succeeded, the banks and his father were always there to mop up.

He had no sympathy for anyone.

According to Mary Trump, he was never held accountable for anything he did or paid any penalty.

The out-of-control and deadly pandemic have pulled off the mask that he so laboriously constructed and revealed him, she says, as a “pathetic, petty little man – ignorant, incapable, out of his depth and in his own delusional spin.”

He just has no idea what to do, and he is pulling a lot of people down with him.

As someone who loves my country, I take no comfort in Mary’s scathing assessment, because I can see every day with my own eyes that it is true. How can any patriot take comfort in that?

He is, as someone angrily told me the other day, “our” president.

Lots of people believed pets have enriched and changed their lives. Could that have been true for Donald Trump?

I think so. Curiously, pets hold us accountable. There are painful and obvious consequences to mistreating them.

First, animals teach us how to love. Then, because we love them, we are moved to take good care of them.

Most studies relating to children and adolescence focus on children’s relationships with other humans.

A Google search I launched found only 22 studies of the emotional benefits for children that come from having pets.

But they were fascinating. All of the studies found a wide range of emotional benefits animals offer children, especially regarding self-esteem and loneliness, two of the President’s most difficult childhood issues.

A child learns to walk between one and two years of age, and having an active pet to follow around, wrote Dr. Boris Levinson (Pets And Human Development,) “encourages the child’s crawling, increases the use of fine muscles, and makes the process of learning to walk easier and even more pleasurable.”

Children can also learn from animal health issues, he wrote,  the mechanics of health care, and the importance of taking care of themselves.

Psychiatrists like Dorothy Burlingham and Anna Freud have long argued that pets offer deeper and more important benefits.

They are, they say,  an important learning object of fantasy and creativity for children, a critical tool for strengthening a child’s understanding of reality and perspective.

Watching Donald Trump’s Sphinx-like and inhuman response to the agony around him, I see a human being incapable of being creative, of offering real solutions, he simply seems stuck within himself, just as Mary Trump reported.

Governor Andrew Cuomo had his problems too but was always trying something new, something different, some of which actually worked.  He kept attacking the virus every day in every possible way.

And he couldn’t stop talking about his dog.

Cuomo’s creativity was infectious and soothing.  Trump’s rigidity is killing him. New York City had no deaths this week, Donald Trump’s America had many thousands.

Instead of leading, he’s become the Chief Old Fart, angry, grumpy, and useless. It seems like he’s fighting all out for 1850.

But the idea kept popping around in my head this week. Could dogs have saved us from this?

More than one study found that children who mistreat or abuse animals often grow up to abuse and harm people, sometimes with great violence.

So Ed may be correct in assuming that how a child treats animals can sometimes suggest how he or she may treat people.

I spent a year at the University of Kentucky in the 1990’s studying attachment theory as it relates to people and their pets. We talked a lot and I learned a lot about the impact animals can have on children.

The doctors there would watch children and adults through a one-way glass window, and they could tell in a minute if a parent was abusing their children, or if a child had been abused by the way they related to the dogs in the room.

They could also tell me what that child was likely to be like when he grew up.

In a sense, our interactions with dogs are almost always a reenactment of our own emotional experiences – trust, affection, empathy, in particular.

It was like watching a video of our own emotional development and history. The doctors always knew what someone’s mother was like.

Reading Mary Trump’s book on Donald Trump – she has a doctorate in clinical psychology – it seemed to me that Donald Trump  (who had flawed or broken connections with his mother and father and almost everyone else in the family) – was one of those children whose lives would have benefitted from having animals to care for.

Quite possibly, they might have filled the deepening emotional needs and craters in his life.

Trump seems to lack any kind of empathy or compassion for others and has a long history, including three marriages,  of feuds, arguments, broken and troubled relationships with people, reporters, employees, contractors, friends.

Mary Trump supports the idea that her Uncle has a narcissistic personality disorder and is incapable of change or learning.

If nothing else, dogs will take people out of themselves, something recognized by therapists who treat narcissistic disorders. If you have a dog, you have to think outside of your own needs.

Dogs (including my dogs more than once) are used all of the time to help heal troubled, emotionally disabled, autistic, and even schizophrenic children.

Some of the most powerful experiences of my life with my therapy dogs have been our work and children; I simply couldn’t believe how much children will change and heal and learn when they get to work with a dog.

Pets also can teach children how to treat living things humanely. They can develop trust and love.

Animals have done wonders for autistic children, opening up pathways to connection, gentleness, and healthy relationships.

The studies I found also showed evidence of a strong association between pet ownership and cognitive benefits – speech and intellectual development.

Almost all of these things – loneliness, poor self-esteem, an inability to relate to suffering and need in others – are problems Donald Trump quite visibly struggles with, whether you like him or not.

He simply can’t seem to manage complex issues and difficulties like a pandemic or racial upheaval.

He is said to be unable to focus on written texts or lengthy discussions and has no way to relax or laugh or play outside of golf. These are all symptoms of trauma in children.

But he stopped letting people from China in when the virus began, one of his supporters wrote to me indignantly. Why are you picking on him? Poor man, I wrote back, can’t you use your own eyes and ears and see what a mess we’re in, and what a mess he is?

The President sleeps apart from his wife, is rarely alone with his son, has few close friends, and spends almost all of his spare time watching TV and looking at and fuming over stories about himself.

His appearances in the Rose Garden are almost incoherent now, he sounds just like what he keeps accusing Joe Biden of being. He ought to walk a dog once in a while.

Dogs force us to interact with other living things, they deepen our feelings of love and attachment, they ease loneliness, and they teach us the consequences of selfishness and self-absorption.

My dogs ground me in reality, they help focus me.

The things that Trump most struggles with are the very things dogs and animals are supposed to help children with.

I often think of how different the U.S. Senate would be if a bunch of dogs were running around the chamber visiting those bloodless senators, most of whom look like they need an enema.

Those smiles might help save the country, open people up, get them to talk with one another rather than fight with one another.

Therapy dogs could be trained to rush over to angry old white men who refuse to listen or compromise and lick their hands. Smiles would pop up all over the chamber.

Maybe legislation might even get passed.

It seems strange, but dog lovers know it just might work.

I think it’s important for me to relate a couple of my own experiences with dogs and the impact they had on me as a child since that’s what we are talking about.

I want to say I had some of the problems Trump had – issues relating to emotional abuse and neglect, and remote and critical parents.

I was bullied, frightened, abused,  a bed wetter well into adolescence.

My sister and I  ran away from home a score of times; I had a wide range of several problems relating to anxiety and depression. I was quite young when I first realized the emotional impact dogs could have on my complicated life.

Although we were damaged in similar ways, Mr. Trump and I were and are not alike. His problems seemed to inflate his self-esteem, mine demolished mine. He ended up being grandiose, I ended up living in a panic, afraid to take a walk.

His father could buy him out of trouble, mine couldn’t and didn’t want to.

In the fifth grade, a janitor said he would give away a puppy his dog had given birth to; it would go to the first kid in line. My parents said no, but I got up early in the morning to be the first in line.  I sensed this was something I needed.

An older kid pushed me away to take my place, I fought for the first time in my life, and the janitor gave the dog to me.

I only had “Lucky” for six weeks; he died of distemper. But in those six weeks, he changed my life so vividly I remember it clearly to this day, and I remember very little about my childhood.

At night, I felt safe and protected when Lucky was there. When I came home, I suddenly had a friend who was thrilled to see me, and who showered me with love. I felt a new kind of love surging inside of me.

I stopped hiding in the closet and setting fire to things.

I got stronger protecting Lucky and getting to adopt him.

I learned responsibility by learning to care for Lucky; my parents refused to help.  I learned about mortality and life when he died. I was broken-hearted, but we soon got another dog.

I learned that the world goes on. I learned I would always have a dog.

I worked to buy him food, and then to pay some of the first vet bills. He eased my loneliness to the point where I rarely wet my bed when he was in it.

He helped me make friends and learn to care for him when he got sick.

When I was older, I had a Bassett hound named Sam, who would push me out of bed in the winter and growl if I tried to get back in. We compromised. I slept on one end, he slept on the other.

He was my hero when he defied my overbearing mother and dragged an entire pot roast off of the dining room table as we were about to sit down and eat.

He was heroic to me, he took a good beating in exchange for some good meat.

I’ve learned a lot from every dog I’ve ever had; they have enriched my life and marked every passage of it.

I am not sure I would be alive today if not for the border collie and black Lab, who took it on themselves to stand alongside me when I broke down on the first Bedlam Farm.

Training Frieda, Maria’s man-hating dog gave me the strength to think Maria might just possibly love me back.

By now, I knew dogs would always help me, something I first learned with Lucky.

Dogs have become my partners in every phase of life, they sat by me when I wrote, shared the journey into the country, gave me exercise and brought me into a vibrant connection with many people, something entirely new to me.

They gave me the chance to become a writer and spend my life writing books rather than suffocating in some corporate office.

A therapist told me that my love for dogs was my path to loving people. That was what you want, she said, and that is that I found.

My dogs kept love alive for me when I had lost it in my life and thought I would never have it again.

Every word I have ever written – 26 books – was written with a dog at my feet.

The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry reports that a child who learns to care for an animal and treat it kindly and patiently receives “invaluable” training in learning to manage people the same way.

How children treat animals is their first major lesson in how to treat human beings.

That is relevant to this discussion.

In a political sense, this is precisely what President Trump struggles to do whether we agree with them or not. He seems able to divide and polarize, but not to manage complex situations like the pandemic.

Without empathy, it is not possible to relate to millions of worried people.

It is clear from Mary Trump’s book that Trump is unable to think in long-range terms and has never been asked to manage large groups of people or strategize about complicated national and global issues.

He was drawn to seeking the approval of a strong and demanding man,  like his father. Or Putin. Or Kim Il Jong.

Trump’s father Fred was known for dividing and polarizing his family, his life was a template for how he governs.

Would a dog possibly have changed that?

Donald Trump has trouble maintaining relationships, exploits almost everyone around him, including his family, and demands absolute loyalty.

Psychology Today asked the question a year ago: “Is it generally true that pets are linked to the psychological well-being of children?

Yes, said the magazine’s report after a study of more than 20 studies:  While some of the findings are mixed, the authors concluded that “growing up with pets is linked to higher self-esteem cognitive development, and social skills.”

Trump always struggled to learn in school or to care much about learning. He seems to have virtually no social skills unless we count inspiring slavish pandering and butt-kissing.

One could argue that if Trump were able to manage these things, all critical emotional tasks for a leader, he might have a better shot at a second term in office. Instead, he seems to be flailing. He looks more and more hopeless every day.

If he’d had a dog, our country might not be in so much pain.

I don’t believe getting a dog would miraculously change life for Trump or the country now, he’s just about 74 years old, and shows little interest in improving.

But I think the evidence strongly supports the idea that he had a dog or other pet in his youth, he might have been able to approach challenges like the pandemic and race in a more empathetic, effective, and honest way.

The famed  British child psychiatrist Dorothy Burlingham studies the impact of animals on children.

She studied the “latency” period, which comes as the result of a pre-verbal child’s loneliness and his search for a partner who will give him or her all the attention, love, and companionship he desires, who will provide an escape from loneliness and solitude.

In his loneliness, the child seeks solace in his fantasies and daydreams.

Most of these are animal fantasies.

The animal offers the child what he is searching for: faithful love and unswerving devotion. There is nothing that this new friend cannot understand; speech is quite unnecessary, for understanding comes without words.

These fantasies are an attempt by the child to substitute for the remote and unloving family an uncritical, but understanding, dumb, and always loving creature.

Burlingham also believed that animals could help children understand and learn the very things that Donald Trump seems to have never learned: to take responsibility, to love, and to empathize, all qualities we see in great leaders.

Reading Burlingham and also the wrenching accounts of Trump’s niece Mary, I can’t help but feel some compassion for the child that grew up to become a monster because the people who raised him were monstrous.

They mistreated him and his siblings and, it seems, to the outcast Mary.

As adults, we are held accountable for what we do. We forgive children.

I can’t expect to get a free pass in life because I had a rough childhood. Everyone has their problems, nobody needs to hear mine.

Donald Trump has caused great suffering and angst in our world, so much of it unnecessary and undeserved. He has wreaked havoc and division wherever he goes. Reading Mary Trump’s book, one can’t help but notice this is just what his father did to his family.

A dog or cat would certainly have been a grounding feature of that family’s life.

It is a shame that the circumstances of his life gave him such a difficult beginning.

But there is always an opportunity in challenge, and if some people can’t learn to love him, we can all learn from him.

Now, for the first time in his life, he is beginning to be held accountable for the things he has chosen to do.

Is he really undeserving of compassion?  I’m not God, it’s not a decision I can make for others. The more power a damaged person gets, the more harm he or she can do.

I began writing about President Trump and this election because I hold myself accountable for how I responded to the trouble we are in.

I don’t think I could look at myself in the mirror down the road if I didn’t step in now and say what I believe.

I relate to Trump in a very personal and unnerving way, in that there are parts of him that are also parts of me, and for some of the same reasons.

I learned this, though: There is help and help helps. I could change, and so I know that so could he. I knew I was broken and hurting people, I wanted to stop.

I’ve made my decision; he made his. Life will call each of us to account for how we have lived.

Every one of us will one day have to do the same.