I am a god to my dog. I don’t know who said this first and, of course, upon closer examination, the analogy breaks like a pound puppy’s heart, but it says something about how most creatures deify power greater than their own. So I’m about halfway up Mt. Olympus with most of the other dog owners – not all, alas! – and from here I can see a number of fantasies, idols, ideologies, shibboleths, and inevitabilities: Justin Bieber, Trickle Down Economics, Your Own Home, Sarah Palin, Death, and What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger, milling around above me, looking like unchallengeable absolutes to their believers. Even though I ‘m not at the heights, I find being a godlet of any sort frustrating. Communication with my devotee is so hard.
Our dog is new to us, but is not a young dog. She’s a sweet, older greyhound. She likes to run. Since our fence is in holes and hasn’t yet been repaired, she’s a four-mile a day walked dog.
I’d like to be able to share the rules with her, to tell her that she can have the freedom of the yard, if she doesn’t go through the holes, doesn’t kill other animals – or even scare the life out of them – and doesn’t dig.
She hasn’t got this yet, but she likes the rules she knows and tries to follow them. When she doesn’t and knows she hasn’t, she punishes herself more than I would punish her. And I’d like to tell her that very few of the rules are deal-breakers. So, when she doesn’t greet me at the door, and is cowering on her bed in the other room, I want to say “Look, if you’re doing scientific investigation, or you’re planning to create an artistic masterpiece out of this, that’s okay, but otherwise, just stay out of the trash.”
When she has been especially lonely or needy in our absence, she’s brought special tokens to the altar of the living room floor – a gardening glove, a running shoe, anything we’ve used or touched that is ours, not hers. Normally she leaves all our things in pristine condition, or at least as pristine as a gardening glove or a well-used shoe ordinarily is. This dog has not tended to be much of a chewer –well, a pair of underwear once, when she was compelled by something extraordinary in doggy dismay or despair. She hasn’t done that since. Either she knows better now, or they weren’t all that tasty. Forbidden fruit is more appealing on the tree, not so much after it has fallen to hand.
Mostly, I want her to get along with the cats.
Actually, peace negotiations are looking up. The dog has stopped trying to run her way out of the mesh crate we hold her in for these encounters and generally sits placidly, unless she has a brilliant notion to show the cats just how friendly she can be – which terrifies them all over again.
Their first encounters were unfortunate. In the first meeting the dog ran up to me while I was holding a cat: Much yowling and clawing from the cat; a lot of bouncing and trying to see what I’ve got from the dog. In the second encounter, the dog got into the garage, where the cats have been sulking – and living – since the dog’s arrival. The cats ran, the dog chased, the little god of the household chased the dog. The cats found protected places from which to hiss and threaten; the dog barked and bounced. I scolded; I begged; I threatened; I dragged the dog out.
I understand the cats’ issues: The dog has invaded the cat’s territory. The dog is big, and she’s a sighthound and a chaser. She has all the instincts that tell her to run after the smaller running thing and to catch. And, when I tell the cats it will all be all right, I am sure they are thinking, “Easy for you to say. It’s not YOUR life!”
But really I think (and hope) the dog wants to be friends. She has lived amicably with cats before.
The cats work from the worst of their fears. And I am sure that if they acknowledged any of us in the household as gods, they’d be praying for lightning to strike the dog dead, for her crate to be leveled to dust, for their sacred right to this property to be upheld. I think cats are agnostics anyway, tending not to look to anything superior to themselves. Certainly I have never been a deity to them; when relations are shaky between us, the cats have never believed it was their fault, but simply my insensitivity, tactlessness, or ignorance. Still, if they have faith in some Goddess of the Wild, Protector of Cats, I am guessing that their faith is being shaken.
Right now one cat is in the garage; one is hiding under the bed. The dog, bless her sweet heart, may have figured out another part of the rules – she is snoozing calmly in the living room, having been let out of her crate. She is not trying to dig the cat out from under the bed. Perhaps she simply hasn’t noticed.
At least on this little scale, this dog’s god thinks respecting other creatures and living in peace is a good place to start.
No comments:
Post a Comment