Agents of Entropy

Some say the universe will come to its end with a whimper, others say a bang. I think the last sound will be a dog barking somewhere in the distance.

You see, dogs, I have recently come to realize, are the agents of entropy. Chaos is their name, disorder is their game.

And you don’t have to be Albert Einstein or Steven Hawking to know that this is true.

Both those respected scientists understood exactly what German physicist Ludwig Boltzman was talking about in his second law of thermodynamics which states that disorder in the universe always increases with time. The measurement of the total of that disorder is called entropy.

Boltzman, I theorize, must have had a dog. Maybe even a German Shepherd.

One moment Boltzman is leaning back in his lederhosen quaffing a fine Bavarian brew and contemplating the mysteries of the universe when “bang” — a totally-wired dog covered with mud and panting with breath that could put extra rings around a couple of gaseous planets does a controlled crash into his lap. “Eureka!” he undoubtedly shouted, as his hypothesis took shape.

Using Boltzman’s logic you can predict that if you leave a young dog alone for a time in a room, or a pickup truck for that matter, you will return to find that entropy has indeed increased as evidenced by the advanced state of disorder you will surely discover.

A part of the second law offers that when you combine the entropy or disorder of two systems, the total will be greater than the sum of the parts. Right again.

Leave two puppies alone in same said room or truck and you will indeed find more than twice as much destruction when you return.

Although I’m no rocket scientist, I think I understand exactly how Boltzman arrived at these far-reaching conclusions. I, too, have a German Shepherd. Her name is Shadow.

After observing her behavior for the last year or so, I’ve developed a few not-so-universal laws of canine thermodynamics of my own. None of these theories, I might add, seem to contradict the pioneering work of Boltzman or even Einstein or Hawking, for that matter. Shadow, who is sitting on the stairs and watching over my shoulder as I write this, agrees. She double-checked the math.

So, here goes:

            1. Nature abhors a vacuum. Therefore, dogs instinctively track mud, leaves, snow or just about anything else onto any newly-vacuumed carpet.

            2. What goes down, often comes up. You don't have to be a hairball to figure this one out.

            3. Complex systems tend to shed their parts — ergo, dogs shed hair ­— usually nonstop. See number one.

            4. What happens when an irresistible object comes up against an immovable force. Translation: a dog's willingness to obey a direct order is inversely proportional to your insistence and desire that it do so.

            5. Pups are the protons of the macro world. In quantum mechanics, scientists cannot pinpoint where an electron or proton in an atom is at any given point but only calculate the probability of its location at a given time. Anyone who has tried to find and corral a frisky pup who is gleefully bounding about the neighborhood after sneaking between your legs as you go out the door knows this first-hand.

            6. Puppies never chew up anything that costs less than $50 to replace. (There is no scientific allegory here but it does seem to be some sort of unwritten natural law. It is similar to the rule that almost any non-traumatic injury to a dog can be cured by a $50 visit to the veterinarian and a $35 envelope of those little orange pills.)

            7. Nothing, not even light, can escape from a dog’s food dish. Try putting anything remotely edible into the black hole that is the supper bowl and see if it ever makes it back.

            8. E=MC2. Einstein’s general theory of relativity states that energy equals matter times the speed of light squared. Dog energy equals Milk Bones times the amount you spend on crates, leashes, collars, pull toys, chew bones, tennis balls and trips to the doggie timeshare condo (boarding kennel) in Ellsworth — squared.

            9. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. In physics this deals with the transfer of energy but it holds true with dogs. You must expend at least as much energy keeping up with them and picking up after them as they burn trying to stay ahead of you. That is a lot of energy.

Any garden-variety physicist will tell you that the only way to slow entropy is by the application of more and more of the above said energy.

Still, it is psychically, and indeed scientifically, impossible at this point to reverse the process.

The universe with its billions of galaxies, millions of exploding stars, and scores of class M planets covered with houses full of puppies, is gradually, inexorably succumbing to chaos.

So take comfort in knowing you are up against cosmic forces the next time you come home to find your magazines shredded, the furniture upset and a smiling, lovable puppy jumping and jumping excitedly in the middle of the room, waiting for you to come join the fun.

Stop whimpering. Take Rover for a walk. Pause and look up at the stars. Then listen closely and you, too, may hear the bark of a dog echoing faintly in the distance.