Beaz

The dog is clearly privvy to information I am not, for all the times she stops and plants her feet and refuses to look in the direction we'd like her to walk. Quietly, with ears flat, she protests our direction, frustrated by our inability to understand what is so obvious to her. We cajole and encourage and drag her along because she needs to learn to trust our decisions, and because dogs are not emotionally equipped to make decisions on their own.

She understands how to walk through a room full of cables snaking across the floor without uprooting anything, and despite a furiously wagging tail, I have never known her to knock things over. She doesn't drool, lick, chew, or touch anything we didn't ask her to, and picks up her feet carefully to skip out of the way of a tangling leash. Sometimes, I know she is ruining me in terms of expectations of intelligence and self-awareness in a dog; soon, she will return to her usual home and leave me wondering what can possibly go on in her head.

15 March 2014 16:47