Leading With Heart
Dogs are central to the lives of diplomat Rufus Gifford ’92 and his veterinarian husband. Their golden retrievers remind the couple about love, trust, and living life with an open heart.
BY TAYLOR PLIMPTON ’94
Rufus Gifford ’92 and Dr. Stephen DeVincent met in February of 2009 in Washington, D.C. Gifford had been working on the Obama campaign and was shifting over to become the finance director for the Democratic National Committee. DeVincent, a veterinarian, was in town on a fellowship with the State Department in the Office of Ocean and Polar Affairs, focusing on polar bear policy. As Gifford remembers, “From 2009 on, there was only one person I noticed.” The following year, they moved in together, and in January of 2012, they got their first dog — a golden retriever who would become the center of their lives.
They named him after Odysseus’s dog, Argos — the first great dog of literature. In the epic tale, Odysseus has been gone from home some 20 years — has fought in Troy, been blown by Poseidon to the edge of the seas, resisted the call of the Sirens — and when he finally returns, no one even recognizes him but for his faithful dog. Ancient, flea-bitten, and neglected, Argos sees his old, never-forgotten friend and wags his tail.
THE GRAND BARGAIN
Gifford mentions the origin of their dog’s name because he and DeVincent and Love, Dog’s founder, Mark Drucker, and I are all talking about the history of canines and humans, and Homer composed The Odyssey 2,700 years ago. It’s amazing how, even then, all the qualities we hold so dear in dogs today were already evident in that first noble dog: faithfulness, friendship, heart. Of course, the story of dogs and humans began long before that, at least 35,000 years ago, maybe more.
“All domesticated animals were domesticated for a reason,” DeVincent says, “dogs and horses especially. There’s an exchange that they made with us. And wolves were smart enough to realize there was benefit there for them in this symbiotic relationship: that they would be provided for, get food and shelter, get to sleep on the bed. It was the grand bargain.”
What we humans were getting in return is less obvious. Even DeVincent does not name it right away. Sure, originally, what those first tamed wolves were giving our ancestors as they sat around the campfire was, in part, simple — sensitive ears to notice a predator’s approach in the night, or an enemy’s. And over the ensuing millennia, canines have offered their services in myriad other ways, too. They’ve been guard dogs and attack dogs, they’ve hunted rats and foxes and lions, they’ve been shepherds and guides.
They gave us something else in that ancient exchange, too, though — something more abstract, yet also more substantial. Love, yes; companionship, yes. But more than all that — or perhaps through all that — dogs opened us up, somehow, exposed something soft within us. DeVincent quotes Anatole France as saying, “Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.” And that’s it, I think: dogs gave us the gift of awakening. They expanded our lives, our sense of who we were, and who we could be. It was true 35,000 years ago and it is true today: dogs allow us to be our best selves. Quite simply, they make us more human.
THE DIPLOMATIC DOG
“The relationship between Washington, D.C., and dogs is legendary,” says Gifford, who, like Odysseus, is no stranger to the world of politics. An integral part of the victorious Obama and Biden campaigns, and the former U.S. ambassador to Denmark, Gifford is now the chief of protocol for the United States, a role he describes as being the primary liaison between the Biden administration and foreign governments. Whenever the president or other senior White House officials travel overseas, the chief of protocol travels with them, and is an active participant in the president’s global engagement.
When I ask Gifford about the role of dogs in politics, he laughs and quotes Harry Truman: “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.” But dogs in D.C. don’t just function as one’s only possible loyal companions — they also serve to make a president, for instance, more accessible.
“Dogs humanize powerful people in a way that nothing else can,” he explains.
But Gifford is less skeptical about the political world — and the strangely integral role dogs play in it — than one might expect: “You could look at this cynically — like, this is why politicians get dogs, because it humanizes them — but I think it’s real, too. Hearing George W. Bush talk about Barney, his little terrier Toto kind of dog, there was this tremendous amount of love in his voice, which was very different from the way he talked about other things.”
Chiming in, DeVincent mentions Richard Nixon’s famous speech about his dog, Checkers — and we all talk for a moment about how Donald Trump was the first president in more than 100 years to not have a dog in the White House. Then Gifford goes on to describe one of his favorite moments of the early Biden administration: a press gathering in the Oval Office.
“They try to orchestrate these perfect little photo ops — but you could hear Champ and Major, his two dogs, barking in the background — they were probably rolling around the beautiful South Lawn. And there was something so incredibly normal about that, so real. Somehow, the fact that Champ and Major were barking during this very official, serious Oval Office press moment, it felt so wonderfully disarming.”
LEADING WITH YOUR HEART
There’s something wonderfully disarming about Gifford, too — as a human being, and also as a diplomat. When he enters a situation, or meets someone new, he puts his heart on the table, which is, as he points out, exactly what dogs do.
“When a dog approaches you, they lead with their heart. Those are the dogs that I think we all fall in love with, the ones who go in very open-hearted. And in my work as a diplomat, I always try to come into any conversation and show everybody exactly who I am in a very honest and transparent way.”
It’s ironic, perhaps, in a realm so often defined by deception and cunning, that Gifford’s method is simply to be himself — but it seems to work. It softens people, lets them know it’s okay for them, too, to open up. No longer is it two politicians, with all their hidden motives, but just two human beings, being themselves. “In an increasingly virtual and disconnected world, to try to connect human to human in the same way that dogs and humans connect — it really does matter,” he says.
There is, of course, great risk in going into any relationship with such openness. It requires a trust that’s hard to find these days in anyone — except, perhaps, once again, in dogs. “Dogs give you the benefit of the doubt,” Gifford continues. “So, in an age when trust is sort of at an all-time low — we don’t trust political leaders, we don’t trust business leaders, we don’t trust the media — dogs do trust. They go into a situation with a new person trusting that you are going to be nice to them, that you’re going to, you know, throw the ball for them. And there’s something so beautifully optimistic about that.”
Gifford and DeVincent both recognize that not all dogs are like this — that just as with humans, dogs who have been abandoned or abused can lose this ability to trust. But Gifford believes that this open, loving nature is their true state, and that it is our own true nature, too. “In my life, in my work, I’m obsessed with this idea of human trust. We insist, because we’ve been burned over and over again, on viewing situations with a certain degree of skepticism. But wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could trust in the same way a non-wounded dog trusts? Somehow, we’ve got to build that trust back. And if you think about a model for that — and this is connected to putting your heart on the table — it’s disarming folks just like dogs disarm you when they look at you and wag their tail.”
Gifford and DeVincent both recognize that not all dogs are like this — that just as with humans, dogs who have been abandoned or abused can lose this ability to trust. But Gifford believes that this open, loving nature is their true state, and that it is our own true nature, too. “In my life, in my work, I’m obsessed with this idea of human trust. We insist, because we’ve been burned over and over again, on viewing situations with a certain degree of skepticism. But wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could trust in the same way a non-wounded dog trusts? Somehow, we’ve got to build that trust back. And if you think about a model for that — and this is connected to putting your heart on the table — it’s disarming folks just like dogs disarm you when they look at you and wag their tail.”
HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS
“As soon as we got Argos, I fell in love with him in a way that I didn’t know I could,” Gifford confesses. “He just has a kindness about him. The way he looks at you is second to none.”
For years, Argos traveled the world with Gifford and DeVincent, a constant companion no matter where life took them — Massachusetts, D.C., Chicago, Provincetown. Denmark, where in 2015 DeVincent and Gifford were married. Ironically, Argos hated traveling — even with anti-anxiety medicine, he’d cry the whole time. But wherever Argos ended up, he loved it, and it quickly became their home. In Copenhagen, thanks to the hit reality TV series I Am the Ambassador, Argos became a celebrity, and people would stop his proud owners on the street to take selfies with him.
After three and a half years in Denmark, they returned to America, where they soon added a new golden to their family. Where Argos was anxious, Svend was a “dog’s dog: very lively, very happy, very little anxiety.” At first, they weren’t sure he would be the right fit, considering how his energy changed the dynamic in the house — but he kept everyone, including visiting political dignitaries, on their toes. (Laughing, DeVincent describes how the British ambassador was visiting, and there was Svend, ever the comedian, showing off and tossing a stuffed animal up and down in his mouth and whipping it around, having the time of his life.) Most importantly, Svend keeps Argos, who turned 10 in November, young.
When the coronavirus struck, it offered, along with the most impossible tragedies, the strangest of blessings, especially for a family so often on the go. Gifford, DeVincent, and their canine friends found themselves forced to stay in one place. They settled in Nantucket in a house overlooking the harbor. As Gifford made crucial Biden campaign Zoom calls, there behind him, sprawled out on the floor, were the dogs. The four would take long walks — six miles through marsh and little forests and fields and out to the beach — no one else around, the dogs sniffing for rabbits, Svend out in front chasing birds, Argos lagging a bit behind in his older, arthritic way, but still so happy and at peace. And if they were lucky enough to all have some free time, there’d be moments of quiet in the long afternoons, when nothing was happening and nothing needed to, when they could all relax back in bed and simply be together, the dogs feeling safe and protected, everyone close, calm, at ease, in love. This sense of having nowhere else you had to be, nowhere else you wanted to be — this sense of home.
Now that life is opening up again, though, Gifford is back on the road, and his new position traveling with the president overseas means he’ll be gone perhaps even more than ever before. “By far the hardest part about the move, and Stephen will laugh at me when I say this — is [he] and the dogs are staying up here.”
As in the past, they’ll all manage — which for the most part means doing everything they can to spend every weekend together — at home, where the dogs are.
THE PRIVILEGE OF GRIEF
DeVincent’s first golden retriever, Aubrey, lived for almost 17 years. Soulful and empathic, he was a therapy dog, and DeVincent would take him to nursing homes and hospitals to share his calming nature with others in need — though Aubrey often offered similar solace to DeVincent, himself. “I went through some dark days back then, and he’s the one that pulled me through. He sort of lived for me. And I lived for him.”
So often we talk about how we need our dogs, but too easily forgotten is how much they need us. And yet, strangely, this is one of the greatest gifts dogs offer us. As Gifford puts it, “They provide a routine and a consistency in your life that can drive you toward a sense of purpose. And this idea of being needed by them — I’m grateful for that.”
DeVincent is grateful for it, too: “We have to make sure that they’re fed, they’re walked, that if we go away, someone takes care of them. They guide our lives, and I think there’s something extraordinary about that. We give that to our dogs very willingly.”
It’s odd to think of it that way, that we so willingly sign up to have these four-legged creatures run our lives, but that’s what we do. (Laughing, Gifford mentions their Facebook and Instagram accounts, how every other picture is of Argos or Svend.) But, of course, the return on it is beyond compare. It is, perhaps, a forgotten part of the grand bargain; dogs give us the gift of letting us take care of them, of letting us love them, for what else is love but showing up?
And having to show up for another creature besides yourself, it expands your life — something is bigger than you now, more important — it expands your heart. With a dog in your life, you have no choice but to be in love. Of course, really loving something, as we inevitably do with our dogs, makes us vulnerable to loss, to grief. And no dog lasts forever. “A golden’s average lifespan is 10 to 12 years,” DeVincent notes. “So, every day beyond that with Aubrey was a gift, every day I was grateful.”
Yet the grief you feel when your dog passes on, that, too, is a gift. “I would always remind clients of mine who lost their animal that the grief is real, every bit as real as losing family,” he says. “And the level of pain that they feel reflects the depth of the love — because if they didn’t have that connection, that bond, then there wouldn’t be that sense of profound loss. I try to remind them to accept that as a tremendous gift, that they feel such grief, because many people don’t experience it.”
This is the risk and the reward of having a dog. Something in you will be awakened, opened — something soft and true. And, sure, you could say life would be easier if you kept your heart guarded, if you never dared to love, because then you’d never have to feel the pain of loss. But as Gifford and DeVincent remind us, grief is a privilege. It means you have truly loved, and truly lived. It means that, like a dog, you have been brave enough to lead with your heart.
As DeVincent puts it: “Wouldn’t life be less full if you hadn’t had that experience?”