Poochspective
The Boulder Atop the Hill I am an emotional boulder perched in a shallow groove atop a hill. It takes a great deal of force to move me and I tend to naturally and quickly re-center. However, there are times when life pushes long and hard enough to dislodge me from my peaceful perch. I roll down the hill while gaining momentum. I am ten tons of bad attitude that will obliviously crush anything foolish enough to get in my path or unfortunate enough to not see me coming. Don’t get me wrong--I don’t want to hurt anyone. It’s simple emotional physics. I just need to roll along until my emotional momentum has spent itself. I expect people to have enough sense to get out of the way. You may talk trash to the oncoming train but either you’ll know when to jump or you’ll win a Darwin Award. In that moment, either is fine with me. I live alone, so coming home from a particularly stressful day and raving as though I have been dealt the greatest injustice ever imposed upon humanity should be O.K., right? Boulder Meets Dog I thought so. And one day, after having suffered some now-forgotten injustice, I returned to my apartment wishing someone had tried to mug me so I could indulge in some cheap medieval therapy exercises. It seems your typical muggers have the ability to sense the smell of “justifiable homicide” exuding from people. It only annoyed me more. I roll into my apartment and start ranting about whatever idiot sent me tearing down the hill. There are probably nine or ten strung-together and artfully chosen obscenities between every meaningful word. Every gesture is a slap or slam. I growl and bare my teeth—and that’s not a metaphor. I walk to my bathroom and, continuing to roll along smashing things, open the pet gate so I can take my dog (Hans) outside to relieve himself. At first, I don’t see him. I am not greeted with the cartoonish exuberance that I come home to every day. Reflexively, I think he has gotten loose in the apartment. I angrily worry that he has destroyed something or used the bathroom on the carpet. The boulder gains momentum. Adrenaline surges into my ranting. Lunatics would be justifiably offended to be lumped in the same group with me. Then I hear a sound beside the toilet and see his tail. He is terrified. He is terrified of me. The boulder smashes into an iron wall. It’s the end of the world! I am very protective of the creatures and people I care about. My friends know this about me and they know I’m harmless unless I am protecting something I care about. They seldom want to be around me when I’m in a foul mood but they know it’ll pass without any harm. I’m just a boulder rolling through an empty field. “Just leave him alone for a while.” And they do. Hans, however, does not know this. All he knows is to act on a powerful instinct that tells him I could end his world and he needs to get away from me now and by any means necessary. Hans is the sweetest, most non-threatening dog you could ever meet (unless you’re a bunny). Also, he has a list of phobias that rivals Adrian Monk’s. He brings more good to my life than even I thought a pet could. And I am very protective of him. Seeing him like that made me disgusted with myself. The Guru Who Licked Himself It also gave me perspective. I go to work, out to dinners and events and have interactions and relationships with numerous people. His world consists almost exclusively of our apartment, his daily walks in the field and me for companionship. I am the biggest part of his life and his only pack mate. And unlike Hans, I have control of my life and can choose to invest my energy into things that bring me joy or dwell on what did not. Excepting thunderstorms and other phobia-related events, the only times I see Hans scared or miserable are when I am in an intensely bad mood. When I get in those moods at home, I remember him. For the most part, dogs live in the moment. He may have been scared yesterday when a cat protecting her kittens charged him and swiped his nose, but he is not thinking about it now. He is not reliving the experience, questioning the injustice or spewing idiotic obscenities. I should act wiser than my dog. I owe it to both of us. © 2008 Howard Slacum
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