When the dogs went out at 1 a.m. Thursday, a canine — a coyote, I think — was barking and howling nearby. It sounded as close as the field just north of the house, so I stood on the deck while Summer and Dejah did their business down below.
I hope it was a coyote. The barks sounded like a domesticated dog, and if so the howls could have been a cry for help. But the howls sounded like a wild animal, and the moon bright in the clear sky is growing full, and so I assumed it was a coyote howling at the moon for whatever reason they do so.
Given that assumption, the sound was beautiful, another reason for settling in the country where wild animals still have a little room to be wild. I don’t know what was really happening out there in the dark, any more than a city dweller knows why a siren is howling in the night, but I find that I prefer the animal howl to the machine’s howl.
Voices are especially loud of late, and it’s hard to make sense of it all, and so I have punted several times this week. One of the plaques on my wall says, “Be silly sometimes,” and when it’s hard to make sense of it all, maybe it’s a good idea to take a break and indulge in some nonsense.
The nonsense can be a relief from all the news about people who have taken leave of their senses. I sometimes despair whether they will eventually come to their senses — or I worry that they have not lost their minds, as it certainly appears, but prefer living in chaos filled with rage and hatred.
And so I take refuge in nonsense, and I pick up my guitar and sing songs of love, peace, and on Sunday mornings faith. I find comfort in knowing love still has a place on this planet, peace still beckons reasonable people, and a supernatural power is somehow still in control.
I’m just one man with one voice crying in the wilderness, but if I’m crying out in love, I’ve done all I possibly can.
Sometimes you’ll hear someone say, “He treats her like a dog,” usually when someone is especially mean and nasty to someone he supposedly cares for.
Let me tell you how I treat my dogs.
Dejah is prone to allergies, especially food allergies, so she is on a special diet of “hydrolyzed protein,” which means it’s a specially formulated hypoallergenic dog food to improve digestibility.
Summer is prone to bladder stones, so she is on a special urinary tract diet designed to dissolve the stones. If the stones don’t go away soon, surgery is the only other option. But she seems to be better since I switched to a new brand of treats. More on that in a minute.
I would rather not divulge how much I spend on dog food and veterinary bills, but I believe it’s worth it to keep my girls healthy.
Dejah likes to climb into the other easy chair while I’m watching TV, and Summer usually sleeps in my bed. Most of the time she curls up in a corner of the bed near my feet, but sometimes she gets there before I do and sprawls across the end of the bed — on those nights I sleep horizontally, or kind of diagonally actually.
We live on a three-acre lot, but Red and I built a fence to create a backyard area where they can play without fear of any predator-type critters in the woods, and so they don’t wander away from home.
At least once a night, and often twice, Dejah will whine to go out. She is 12 years old, which is elderly for a golden retriever, and her bladder is not as strong as it used to be. And so I get out of bed and let her outside for a few minutes at 1 or 3 a.m.
When Summer was a puppy, it was a challenge to get her to come back into the house, so I started to bribe her with treats — Beggin’ Strips or Blue Health Bars. These past few months after the bladder stones were not going away, I switched her a few weeks ago to a special veterinary-formula treat. Dejah still gets the cheap stuff, and Summer seems to love her new crunchy treats.
I’m not saying this to complain or to lift myself up as anyone special. This is just the kind of thing that dog owners do for their furry family members.
I’m just saying that being treated like a dog can be living like royalty. I’d like to suggest we come up with a different metaphor to describe the jerk in the first paragraph.
