Well, that sounds to me like a story for the right moment.
I had a good dog, best dog ever I might say. `Cept I suspect my very clever lab understands quite a lot of language, so I wouldn't say it outloud, ya' know?
Anyway, Charvey was smart as a whip. He'd do trick routines and tree my asshole brother for me and sit and stick to a spot outside the store on the sidewalk if I said 'stay' and walked in. But there was no stopping his barking till I got done and came out w/ a plastic bag full of cold water from the fountain for him. Goooood dog!
So I never leashed or confined him. Why should I? He knew how to behave, never dumped trash cans or chased a cat who wasn't at least a little game for it. But there was just one thing I hadn't accounted for. He didn't have the sense to stay out from under cars, especially when the sun beat down and that car happened to park over his favorite napping spot.
And so, one day, my mom came to pick me and my sister up from school. That was odd. But, ok, I guess she had a reason. She picked her moment. Pulled off of the road, turned w/ an elbow over the front seat to face me sitting in the back, gave me the news then turned and kept driving. Odd woman.
So now that boudacious black lab. I really do cry for her sometimes. She's the kind of dog who would adopt and truely love every soul within her natural range, which seems to be around half a mile or so.But there are things she just can't understand.
So when the kids slacked off on keeping her either tied up or inside, I did pull out that story. I didn't tell it to them, though. I just reeled it in myself and explained a bit about dogs, people and misunderstandings.
See, she might eventually learn to stay off the highway right down the hill from here.
Don't know if she's capable of understanding that cars, how ever well driven, sometimes can't stop on ice. And ice and snow, to this dog, are obvious cause for rambunctious romping celebration.
And she can't understand unfriendly people. She'll bound right up to any stranger, tail a waggin, big grin on her face and attempt to give them a full on body hug and tongue kiss. She might, eventually, learn better manners w/ strangers. But only on the level that we, her friends who can kill cows, insist upon it. I don't think she'll ever understand people who respond to open and entheusiastic affection with fear and violence. And she's a big dog; 90+ lbs and almost as tall as I am on her hind legs. When some crazy sob comes along who kicks her or runs away screaming (and they're not playing, as it turns out) she seems to take that as a sign that they might be dangerous. From that point on, she'll protect us from them. What good dog wouldn't? But they kill dogs for doing that.
So, I told the kids, within the dog's hearing, just that. And when they could deomonstrate that they had been able to make the dog understand that paradox, well then they could forget about keeping her on the leash.
The overwhelming majority of people have more than the average (mean) number of legs.
-- E. Grebenik
