DOGS

There is fascination with reports that the animals of South Asia knew what was coming; somehow knew that nature had erupted in an enormous fathom which was racing its deadly fury toward their habitat, their homes. They instinctively sought safe haven.

I have always believed that animals exist on a more intensely intimate plane with regard to their relationship with the earth than do human beings. And, I suppose the South Asia experience validates that belief.

Being a city dweller my entire life, the animals I've loved for as far back as I can remember were, necessarily, dogs. So many... Champ; Tuffy; Lady; Dulcinea; Peaseblossom; Pepi; Heidi; Jessica; Mayor Bill; Nikolai; Calvin; Melissa. And, with the exception of my time with Uncle Sam in Louisiana, Texas and Virginia and the year I lived in a dorm in Boulder, I've never been without a dog.

I am haunted by the anonymous quote that reflects on the dog as follows: "He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion."

I have, as I've gotten older, worked hard at attempting to be worthy of my dogs' devotion. Dogs have, after all, been my best friends, my confidants, my companions throughout my life, from the earliest memories of my childhood to the present day. Dogs helped me through the emotional pain of growing up under the heavy-handed, mean-spirited, foul-mouthed suzerainty of a father whose cop mentality infested the homeplace with a kind of intense melancholy; a sadness that could only be overcome by my relathionship with my dogs.

David and I will occasionally walk into PetSmart and see a caged, eight or nine year old dog, staring into the void of their own melancholy because their friend, their life, their love, their leader abandoned them to others; strangers in a strange world. And for whatever reason people let go of their older dogs -- and there are probably some very good reasons and some very bad reasons -- I will never be able to reconcile that abandonment because, as I said, I am haunted by those words:

"He is your friend, your partner, your defender, your dog. You are his life, his love, his leader. He will be yours, faithful and true, to the last beat of his heart. You owe it to him to be worthy of such devotion."

I suppose this post may be a little inappropriately blithe in consideration of the horrible human suffering in South Asia; Iraq; sub-Saharan Africa and, oh, so many, many other places in the world where the need for a bowl of rice or a cup of milk are commodities which hugely transcend the need for one to be worthy of his dog's devotion.

But, there you have it. Truths need to be told on occasion.