Rosie is a dog, and I remind her of this quite often. In reality, of course, I am not actually telling her anything, particularly since she doesn’t speak English. I am reminding myself that she’s a dog, because it’s easy to forget she’s not human.
For the first year or so after I got Rosie, I couldn’t help but read her emotions in her face. This meant that I constantly thought she was sad, confused, or both.
I think she is often confused, but that's not really the point. The point is that her true emotion is often expressed in her tail. Because she's A DOG.This problem arises in other areas. For instance, Rosie is a beagle and is therefore always hungry. If she had her way she would eat until she threw up, and then she'd keep eating. But this is just because she's a dog, and a beagle in particular. She is built in such a way that she's constantly hungry. Still, sometimes people think I'm starving her. Why else would she be so desperate for any morsel she can get her grubby little paws on?
I keep Rosie in a crate when I leave her alone in the house. A properly-sized dog crate is big enough for the dog to fully stand up and turn around, and no bigger. My mother likes to call this Rosie's jail, and it's tempting to see it that way. I wouldn't want to be confined in a small cage for several hours, so why would she? BECAUSE SHE'S A DOG. She doesn't experience the space like we do. What seems like a jail or a cage to us, is a den to her. She certainly is always happy to be let out of it, but I think that's more indicative of how much she hates being alone than how much she hates being in the crate.
Anyway, thinking of Rosie as a human gets me into a lot of trouble. If I succumbed to it all the time, then she would eat until she was as fat as could be, take over the apartment because I'd be more wary of disciplining her, and we would both probably be significantly less happy than we currently are. Because of this, I often look at Rosie and say, out loud, "you are a dog." It serves as a reminder to us both of where our relationship stands. While this may diminish our relationship in the eyes of some, I think it only generates a deeper and greater understanding for me of exactly who this creature is and precisely why I love her so much.
1 comment:
A dog crate can look like a jail. Maybe its time people look on the positive side of it, and think of it as a baby's crib, to keep them safe. Instead of a cell where to lock them up and prevent them from being a menace.
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