Be more dog – The Wuff With The Smooth

“The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: We only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”

-Thomas Merton

There are lessons in life wherever we look but in order to see them, we must first be on the lookout.

Last week, I had my eyes wide open and I was looking, but all I could see was a hateful hound who, as my grandmother would have said, didn’t know his arse from his elbow. More than that, he couldn’t do right for doing wrong.

At one point, I was actually thinking about strangling the bugger. I had already roared at him (more than once) and I was breathless and sweaty after chasing him around the garden.

“Anyone listening to that is going to think your head’s away,” Herself informed me.

“My head is away!” I replied, an eye twitching and a vein throbbing on my forehead.

Waffle being Waffle had once again chewed what he shouldn’t have chewed and once again, I had lost the rag. In this instance, it was the funnel I used to use to replenish the petrol supply on the lawnmower. It had been tucked away too in a basket of tools in the back garden. Waffle had had to reach up into the basket and pull the funnel out before proceeding to chew it into nothing.

Ironically, I had been mowing the lawn when I noticed this latest incident of canine vandalism and I immediately stopped the lawnmower before giving chase, at one stage throwing a swingball bat at the fleeing, toothy devil. Calm down, animal rights campaigners: The missile missed its target. Still, my sap had risen and the form was officially bad.

“He’s only a dog,” someone else said as I returned to mowing the lawn, wondering absently how I would refill with petrol without a functioning funnel. I didn’t know.

Some days later all had been forgiven and I decided to take Waffle for a walk. However instead of merely setting off from my front door, the idea was that I would have Herself drop me off some three miles from the homestead whereupon, I would walk back.

I was in the passenger seat in the car with Waffle in the footwell at my feet, his head on my knee. No sooner had the car door banged closed but Waffle started to whine. He whined as we made our way out of the gate and he whined as the car winded along our country roads. He whined and he squeaked and he moaned.

At first, accustomed as I am to this characteristic whining I merely considered him excited or scared (or both) at the prospect of another walk, although how he isn’t used to going for a walk now is beyond me.

Then, as the whining continued I joked with my fellow passengers, “Sounds like that man needs a touch of oil, he’s squeaking so much.”

He whined and he whinged and sure enough, the sound eventually started grating on my nerves.

“Shut. Up. Dog.” I suggested through gritted teeth. But to no
avail.

In a bid to snap him out of his lament I flicked my index finger onto his nose making him jump and squeak in surprise.

“Daddy! That’s animal cruelty!” one of the little humans cried.

And there it was: It was as if this very admonition had watered the seed of a life lesson and it had sprouted. My eyes had opened!

It doesn’t matter if I am enraged if and when Waffle chews up my possessions.

It makes no sense for me to
chase him around the garden periodically flinging a swingball bat at him.

And it is counter productive for
me to grind my teeth in frustration when he whines in excitement or fear.

Me being annoyed or enraged or apoplectic isn’t going to stop him chewing or whining – not even if I’m the most enraged as I have ever been in adult life. Waffle is a chewer and a whiner and that’s the end of it.

I shall refer you back, cherished reader, to the quote at the beginning.

“The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves…”

In our case – me and Waffle – he already loves me for who I am, despite and notwithstanding the regular rages and the explosions and the gentle encouragements with the toe of my shoe. His love is unconditional and in canine terms, perfect.

In this instance, you might say, he is the teacher.

My lesson, the one I have
learned through running out of patience, losing my temper and,
on occasion, brandishing the swingball bat with murder in my eyes, is that I must return the love without needing to twist him to fit my own image or cultivate my own morals. I have to let Waffle be perfectly himself and then – only then – can our relationship be complete. By ‘complete’ I mean that I will no longer consider strangulation.

There are lessons in life wherever we look but in order to see them, we must first be on the lookout.