In Which Enthusiasm Is First Restrained and Then Granted Sweet Freedom

Last night, I went to a friend's house for dinner and general hanging out.  This friend has a roommate with a yellow lab puppy (ten months old, I think) whose name is Ollie.  Next to twenty-three pound Rosie, and particularly ten pound Maddy, Ollie feels like a giant dog to me.  He is also very much a puppy, full of puppy energy and playfulness.  I have very rarely seen him without some slobbery, chewed-on object in his mouth that he will plop into someone's lap.  He also has a fairly high dose of puppy neediness, and he is constantly in search of attention and affection wherever he can get.  All of these things, in combination with his relatively large size in a relatively small living space, combine to make Ollie a kind of tornado of a dog—always bounding over people, onto people, and into whatever they're doing.  Last night, Ollie was not as insistent as he has been in the past, but we still found him crawling his way over everyone while we were trying to concentrate on a rousing game of Mario Tennis. 

Nonetheless, at one point in the evening I still found myself pulling this fifty plus pound dog into my lap and covering him with belly rubs and smooches while I cooed compliments at him.  I realized as I was doing this that nobody else there was nearly as engaged with the dog as I was, and I suddenly felt a little self-conscious about it (as is constantly my wont).  While continuing to shower Ollie with love and attention, I turned to my friends and said, "I have been living with two of the cutest dogs in the world for the last three weeks and it has made me CRAZY."

I have discovered that I am certifiably insane about dogs at this point, I think.  I really can't get enough of them.  Sure, I occasionally want my own space away from my dogs from time to time, and I haven't been letting them sleep in the bed with us much (the four of us in there is two too many), but by and large, I feel extremely lucky to be surrounded by this much furry affection, and it appears to have affected me outside of the home, as well. 

It started subtly enough; when I first got Rosie, I found myself smiling more readily at people on the street with their own dogs.  Soon I was talking about dogs with other dog owners, then talking about my dog with my non-dog-owning friends, then taking ridiculous numbers of pictures, sharing them, and starting to talk about dogs in general to my friends and finally everyone I meet.  I suppose I should have realized something was up once I created a blog that is largely about animals with my dog in the title.  But something has definitely changed in the last month or so, and I like it. 

There is an enthusiasm that small children often have about animals that adults don't seem permitted to share—at least, not adult heterosexual men—and I am happy to have regained it.  When I was little I used to coo and chase after every dog I saw, probably in a slightly frightening manner; I know I was always annoyed to see how much more dogs seemed to respond to other people over me.  It didn't stop with dogs either: the first thing I would do upon entering my cousins' house would be to go to the basement to their hamster(s).  When I got older, I became more self-conscious about that enthusiasm, and I guess about enthusiasm in general; my voice is typically in one of two different modes: deadpan or mock deadpan. 

There are things that I love, and dogs are high on that list, and it is a far greater pleasure to let myself be completely enthusiastic about it than to constantly be guarded for fear of being labelled strange.  Maybe what's changed in me is that I've come a lot further in accepting my strangeness, and appreciating it—realizing that others appreciate it as well.  It is a liberating feeling to be able to express my emotions without fear of reprisal, and I don't want to let it go.  There is a community out there for me, I have found it, and when I feel comfortable in it, you will find me cooing at a little fur ball, as excited as five-year-old.