Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Obedience Training

The telephone as usual was in my jacket, and the jacket was hanging on the clothes rack upstairs in the bedroom, so I didn't hear the ringing until I walked by the stairs. Message: come meet her at the track.

I didn't feel like running my one mile or less, so I put on the sports jacket and set out for the school. On the way there more messages, angrier and angrier: Where am I? Why am I not there yet?

Slipping through the fence by the playground I see her running on the far side of the track. I step into the playing field that the track surrounds. She doesn't slow her run as we approach each other on the grass. And I get the idea that she is not going to. I stop walking, watch as she runs full speed up to me and takes a swing at my head, knocking my glasses off and throwing me to the ground. She pounces on me and pummels my back as lying full length I try to keep my face averted. Finally she stops.

- Are you finished?
- Where were you? Why didn't you answer my calls and messages?
- Didn't hear the rings first, the phone was not with me. Then I was on my way here.
- It's your fault.
- Help me find my glasses. I can't see a thing.
- It's my body cycles.

Do you really like these people? Does a dog like its human? Yes. Does the dog respect its human? No, I don't think so. The human takes care of and feeds the dog. But the dog has to carefully watch, predict the human's behavior, to understand what the human wants. The human fails to do this with the dog. The relation of understanding is not complementary. From the dog's perspective, in comparison of understanding, his and his human's, he is the more intelligent. But he doesn't love his human any the less for it.