Stuck at a stoplight, Tuesday afternoon, rush hour. The pickup next to me has some unusual cargo: a huge, unsecured, maroon easy chair and a thirty pound uneasy border collie. I had driven beside the truck for about three blocks before we reached the stoplight, and watched helplessly as the dog first became caught between the chair and wall of the pickup bed, struggling for almost a minute before he freed himself, then as he paced back and forth, throwing panicky glances at the street rushing under him and the smelly, loud cars whizzing alongside.
As we approach the light, I send a thought to the terrified dog: “It’s okay, stay calm.”
I pull up beside the pickup and roll my window down, examining the college-age man and his immaculate female companion. I honk to get their attention, hollering to the man to roll his window down. I know I don’t have a lot of time to inform him of his poor dog’s emotional state before the light changes. This is not a time for lengthy discussion.
“I’m a dog
trainer,” I yell across my passenger seat, “and your dog’s terrified. He’s going to jump!”
The man looks at me with confusion, so I repeat myself, louder: “YOUR DOG’S GOING TO JUMP! YOU NEED TO BRING HIM INSIDE!”
The light changes, and off we go. Again the dog jostles for position with the chair, trying first to crawl through the truck’s rear window then returning to gaze longingly at the street below. Even if he doesn’t jump today, he will certainly jump someday if his owner
continues to transport him in this manner. As luck--or the blessed gods who watch over frightened dogs--would have it, we stopped a couple of blocks away, again side-by-side. I yelled again, “You’re dog’s scared. He’s going to jump out! You need to bring him inside!”
Close attention to canine body language has saved me a lot of grief and pain in my time, so it’s no big shock that this observational ability has spilled over into my social interactions with others of my species. I observe two things in the body language of the two people in the truck. First, the immaculate young lady had certainly destroyed any chance the dog had of moving into the cab. Her perfect hair and matched shoes and handbag might light on fire before they came in contact with dog hair. The fact that the dog had been allowed to come on the trip at all had certainly been contingent on his staying in the bed. Second, the young man had no real concern for his dog’s safety or comfort in the bed of the truck. Of the two other creatures in the vehicle, the dog, I see, is not the primary focus of his attention at the moment. I guess that the young lady is most likely a prospective mate, if not a newly acquired one.
None of this solves the dog’s problem, so I call, “The chair is squishing him!” and point dramatically toward the dog.
The man behind the wheel finally responds.
“What are you selling?”
A dashing grin, oozing health, disinterest, and the kind of confidence only men between twenty-one and twenty-eight can muster.
Off we go again. In two more blocks, the pickup makes a right and drops out of sight. I can’t catch the dog’s eyes as the truck moves away; his panic is almost consuming him as he desperately tries to find a way out, not daring quite yet to jump from the truck, but obviously giving the possibility serious consideration.
I don’t know how much farther the truck drove, or if the dog’s fear of the Big Leap outweighed his fear of remaining in the truck. I sure hope he’s okay.
What am I selling?
The concept of watching placidly as an animal is placed in an uncomfortable position is a completely foreign one to me.
A childhood trip to Sea World was tainted when I reached the chlorine-smelling, shallow dolphin-interaction tank, where hundreds of dirty hands reached out to touch the trapped dolphins. Their Cetacean eyes, cool and intelligent, were red-rimmed with the sting of chlorine and squinted nearly shut against the glare of the sun reflecting off the shallow, unnaturally blue bottom. These animals were not being abused by the standards of the law, or the standards of most other people. But even as an eleven-year-old, it was with tears in my eyes that I joined the throng reaching toward the beautiful gray skin; when would I ever get this opportunity again? The skin was amazingly soft and firm, alive just beneath the surface with coiled muscular power. The body passed along the wall and beneath my hand. The fluke came last, chipped and scarred as bottlenose dolphins’ flukes tend to become after a few years of life in a harsh and strict hierarchy. I remember seeing in my mind’s eye snippets from the many documentaries I watched over and over, where dolphins and whales of all kinds fly through the water, fast as cars and graceful as the wind. Had this animal’s fluke ever propelled it in such a way? Had he ever been given the chance to really use that power? I didn’t know, and I watched with wonder as the animal moved away. In that moment, I experienced an emotion that I’ve encountered countless times since: a great respect mingled with sorrow and pity, accented sharply by a tremendous sense of shame for the actions of my species. I feel it every time I see an elephant or tiger in a circus, and when I see an overweight kudu at the zoo. It is the same sensation I felt when I saw the panic and fear in the dog’s body as he weighed his options in the bed of the pickup.
It’s a good question: What am I selling?
I wonder if I’m trying to sell something I was born with, something I have in infinite supply. Is it compassion? Empathy? And what do I expect in return? What do I charge for a cup of kindness? What did I want from that young man and his gorgeous girl? Was I asking them to ease my mind, to remove from my heart that powerful feeling of remorse, guilt, concern, and pity? That was my price. That’s what I charge other people. I offer them a glance of a freak-show--a chance to look through the eyes of creature of endless compassion--in exchange for the hope that they will learn something from the experience. My payment is the true hope that these fellows of my kind will come away with new eyes for the animals around them, four- and two-legged alike.
Each act of compassion toward an animal is an act of great beauty and benevolence. In bringing ourselves to appreciate and respect the feelings of the beings that share our world, we demonstrate our worthiness of being treated in the same way. Luckily for us, dogs have an unsurpassed capacity for forgiveness. I’m willing to bet a thousand dollars that when that truck stopped and his owner let him down, that border collie ran to his person and thanked him sincerely for rescuing him. No matter how many more times that man makes him ride in the back of the pickup, the dog will always love him. He will always admire and appreciate that man, even when the objective eye finds little to admire or appreciate. He will love his owner right up to the moment that his fear forces him over the side of the truck and into the street.
That is the gift our dogs offer us, and they don’t even charge. In my eyes, that clearly places a tremendous responsibility on us as the guardians of our dogs. We are responsible for their safety, happiness, and quality of life. They may not ask us for this price, but maybe we should consider it a necessary donation.
.
|
|
|
