Murphy and my wife have different views
on my recovery plan. I’ll let you guess
which one doesn’t think a regimen of lying around the house is all that
necessary. The other never needs an
excuse to have a good time. The dog’s
reaction to my taking station on the couch much of the day is pure ecstasy, to
know I will join her on the furniture she considers her playground. I don’t mind sharing the space with Murphy,
but I’ve insisted on a No-Fly Zone. No jumping
through the air and rolling right over me down the length of the couch. She runs it with three somersaults before
executing a triple axel at the end with both her feet in the air. Then she flops off head first on to the
floor. I’m speaking of Murphy, by the
way, not my wife.
For this particular travail, Murphy has
been more attentive than my wife, who describes my infirmity to friends as
quite minor and deserving of little notice.
“If he were smaller,” she says of me, “I’d
throw him over my shoulder and burp him.”
For the times Murphy hasn’t found me on
the living room couch, she’s been happy to stop by and visit me in my little office
at the back of the house. She sorts
through the wastepaper basket for a failed story to chew on. She noses through the zillion wires under my
writing table that connect computers, radios, Yamaha keyboard and audio
cables. She bites down on her favorite
wires, as though her teeth could sense Eric Clapton shivering his notes onstage
at Glastonbury.
When she gets bored, she leans against my knee until I notice her. I’m speaking of Murphy, by the way, not my
wife.
She cannot figure out what happened to
the shoe laces she so loved to chew.
They disappeared with the warm weather when I switched from shoes to
sandals.
When
she comes upon me her first thought is of food.
That’s because she’s never seen me without it. I’m a grazer and am always nibbling on
something. It’s probably a bad habit,
but I’m convinced if I eat more often I’ll have more opportunities to
substitute nutritious snacks for the sugary ones. And once in a while I do. Murphy doesn’t care about nutrition and will
eat anything I happen to be carrying as she follows me around the house. I wish she’d stop begging.
But when she
behaves perfectly, I begin to wonder if dogs are sincere. I tell my doubting wife a dog’s actions may
appear to us as affection, but are no more than the animal’s instinct to find
out where the food is and how to get at it.
I suppose their apparent devotion is no more than a survival technique
honed by evolution to help the dog ingratiate itself to a human benefactor. But I mistakenly
suppose figuring out her psychology is one way of learning to control her.
While
Murphy does not have a sentient mind that truly cares about my well being, I would be cold and heartless
to not accept her desire to be with me as at least a tiny bit of evidence of her affection for
me. She is a dog, not a human, but to
treat what appears to be her devotion as no more than a primal desire to
guarantee a food supply would speak more to my lack of soul than to any
advantage I might have from my intellect.
Owning
a dog forces one into a metaphysical discussion of why we relate so well to
them. OK, not everyone is forced into
such a dialog, but there are those of us who can’t let a bumble bee fly by
without facing the temptation to dissect its psyche. Especially if we want to control it.
We
spend so much time in life trying to control things and we don’t spend enough
learning to see anything beyond what’s apparent or logical. Or to believe in more than what our feeble
minds can comprehend. Not all of what we
experience can be measured by a ruler …
or a dollar sign. There are dimensions
of the heart we cannot explain. They are
not measured, they are heard. They do
not explain, they simply witness.
I
can’t tell you why I have befriended a small animal whose best skills are often
useless today. I no longer need a
Springer to hunt in the autumn fields or depend upon a canine companion to
protect me. And I have rescued more dogs
than have rescued me.
When
I become upset with Murphy because she’s still a puppy and won’t stop biting my
toe, chewing her way through the bottom
row of books on my shelves or scaring the hell out of me by showing up
uninvited in my morning shower, I wish
I’d remember my job is not always to control her. But rather I should be
patient with her, let her grow up and love her.
Even though I still think she’s more interested in my food.
Copyright David Griffin, 2015
The Windswept Press
Murrells Inlet, South Carolina
