Raising the Bar

Do dogs know what is going on in our people world? I mean, really know? I am reading a new book, The Art of Racing in the Rain. I am only about a third of the way through, but I love it. It is a story told from a dog's perspective. I have often wondered what my dog, Bridgette, is thinking. This book, however, has raised that bar of curiosity -- and awareness -- to a whole new level.

Since I quit my job, most mornings, Bridgette and I have taken a walk to Central Park first thing. The walk is usually about an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes. That is a pretty long for a dog who is 14 pounds (well, she is 15 pounds, but I am in denial that she has gained 2 pounds over the winter, which is a lot of weight for a small dog). She has short legs. She loves the walk. She gets to see other dogs and other people; she is learning to play and run. She is seven years old, but was a puppy mill dog so lived in a cage for six years with little human contact. So this is a super fun outing for her.

I have raised the outing bar in the morning. She now downright sulks when I cannot get her out for an hour in the morning (which we may do later in the day).

She has a hard plastic kennel with a wire door and a blanket on the bottom and a nice plush velour cushy round dog bed. At night, I leave the door to her kennel open and she has chosen, again and again, to sleep in the kennel (and to push the fluffy blanket to the side and sleep on the hard plastic). So, that is the bed she has chosen. This is typical since dogs are den dwellers. Also, per Brussels Griffon behavior, she follows me everywhere in the apartment. All the time. I cannot make a move without her sticking by me -- hence their names, "Velcro Griffs".

When she is sulking, however, in what I have now dubbed the Sulky Bed, she climbs into the brown plush dog bed where she normally never steps foot -- during the day!-- and does not move. This morning, a non-Central Park morning because of the rain, she climbed into that bed and did not make a move, despite all my running around the apartment. It was strange. At first, I thought something was wrong with her and I was looking for her. And there I found her. Looking up at me, but without lifting her head, as if to say, "I am very disappointed that every morning for the past week you took me on a nice long walk to the park and this morning you merely take me around the block. To top it off, you leave me here alone. I am not going in my kennel where you normally have to bend down and look in and sometimes can't tell if I am in there because it is so dark. I am going to lay right out here in the open where you can see me. I am not going to raise my head, but raise my eyes to acknowledge your presence. I will not follow you around. Be gone with you."

Ugh. Dagger through my heart. I must say, reading this book has given me a much more colorful description of what Bridgette might actually be thinking.