In Which Sticktoitiveness Is Considered, and Not Just As a Nonsense Word

Rosie is a vocal dog.  All Beagles are, I suppose—it's part of their well-documented nature.  Their name may come from an Old French word meaning "open throat," or another French word meaning "to bellow."  Some Beagles can be heard coming from more than a mile away, baying as loud as they can at every little thing that catches their eye.  The Westminster Kennel Club champion Beagle, Uno, celebrated his win by baying at the top of his lungs.  Rosie is not quite so loud.  I have been told on many occasions how much people love her voice; "Yeah," I mumble back, "it's great until it's right in your face in a tiny apartment."  I mean, her voice is not as loud or as grating as other Beagles, or even a lot of other dogs, but she can use it to great effect when she wants to… and she often wants to.

When I first got her, she used to bark and howl at me when we got home from our walk, but before I fed her, as if to say, "feed me, feed me, it's dinner time, FEED ME, GODDAMMIT!!"  This was a major annoyance and a literal headache, so I implemented a plan to stop it.  The first thing I did was make her sit in her crate while I got her food out and put in the dish, and wait until I released her to eat it.  This was an absolute necessity, as otherwise she would jump at me as I was getting the food or at best just getting underfoot the whole time.  Still, she was more than capable of barking at me the entire time this was going on, so this was not enough.  So I started punishing her the second she would vocalize, making her lie on her side until she calmed down, and only then would she be allowed into her crate and eventually fed.

This started to work, but dogs are not very good at generalizing, and whenever there was a slight change to the circumstances—it had been raining, or there was someone else present, or we hadn't walked as long as usual—then she would start vocalizing all over again.  This led one friend of mine to remark that he didn't think Rosie would ever stop barking before mealtime, and that I was just fighting futilely against fate.  Undaunted, I felt I had seen progress, at least when it was just me and Rosie, and other people weren't around, and if I stuck to it, then it would continue to get better and better.

That kind of fortitude is not something I usually consider my strong suit.  In general, if things aren't immediately easy, I give up on them right away.  This is not always the case, though, but I find a certain emotional comfort in believing this to be true, even if it also leads to terrible anxiety, self-doubt, guilt, and self-recrimination, as well as depression and general mopiness.  This is not an option when it comes to Rosie, though.  I love her and I will not give her up, so I could either buckle down and take care of her in the proper way, or I could suffer through her insanity and barking for the next 9-12 years.

It's easy for me to forget experiences like that, when I am feeling in a particularly bad mood about my ability to accomplish anything of any substance or value.  And there are other examples in my life—not necessarily huge accomplishments, but things that took a large amount of personal courage, confidence, and consistency.  The feeling that I can't do anything comes at a terrible price, but it carries a lot of personal safety.  Remembering the things I've accomplished is also an act of remembering how those accomplishments have made me feel: happy, proud, alive.

In our new apartment, Rosie has begun to bark with great insistency at every small passing noise, even the trucks on the street outside (our old apartment looked onto a courtyard).  It is frustrating, to say the least, but I will develop a working plan and stick with it.  Now if only I can learn to generalize…