Time & Perspective Quote by Cathy Guisewite

There is a quietly devastating kind of comedy in admitting your dog gets the full confessional treatment, then drawing the line at stand-up. Cathy Guisewite, whose cartoons orbit the daily contradictions of modern womanhood, uses that last clause to puncture sentimentality without mocking it. The first sentences build an intimacy that reads almost like a survival strategy: constant companionship, talking out loud, “best buddy,” “all my secrets.” It’s not just affection; it’s practice for being a person when other people feel unavailable, unsafe, or exhausting. The dog becomes a witness who can’t interrupt, judge, or repeat anything, a perfect audience for vulnerability.

Then comes the twist: “but I don’t think I ever really tried jokes out with the dog.” The humor works because it reveals a hierarchy of needs. Secrets are about relief; jokes are about risk. Testing jokes implies you want feedback, timing, recognition - an exchange, not just a release valve. With the dog, Guisewite suggests, she didn’t need to perform. She could be unpolished, private, unmarketable. That’s the subtext: companionship as refuge from the constant pressure to be “on,” even in your own life.

In the context of cartooning, the line also feels like a sly self-portrait of the artist: someone whose job is to turn lived discomfort into punchlines, but whose emotional life might have required a space where nothing had to become a bit. The dog isn’t just a pet; it’s the one relationship that doesn’t demand content.