Totally off-topic---well except for the recent dog-talk
[email protected]
The way I see it, dogs had this big meeting, oh, maybe 20,000 years ago. A
huge meeting - an international convention with delegates from everywhere.
And that's when they decided that humans were the up-and-coming species
and dogs were going to throw their lot in with them. The decision was
obviously not unanimous. The wolves and dingoes walked out in protest.
Cats had an even more negative reaction. When they heard the news, they
called their own meeting - in Paris, of course - to denounce canine
subservience to the human hyperpower. (Their manifesto - La Condition
Feline - can still be found in provincial bookstores.)
Cats, it must be said, have not done badly. Using guile and seduction,
they managed to get humans to feed them, thus preserving their
superciliousness without going hungry. A neat trick. Dogs, being
guileless, signed and delivered. It was the beginning of a beautiful
friendship.
I must admit that I've been slow to warm to dogs. I grew up in a
non-pet-friendly home. Dogs do not figure prominently in Jewish-immigrant
households. My father was not very high on pets. He wasn't hostile. He
just saw them as superfluous, an encumbrance. When the Cossacks are
chasing you around Europe, you need to travel light. (This, by the way, is
why Europe produced far more Jewish violinists than pianists. Try packing
a piano.)
My parents did allow a hint of zoological indulgence. I had a pet turtle.
My brother had a parakeet. Both came to unfortunate ends. My turtle fell
behind a radiator and was not discovered until too late. And the parakeet,
God bless him, flew out a window once, never to be seen again. After such
displays of stewardship, we dared not ask for a dog.
My introduction to the wonder of dogs came from my wife Robyn. She's
Australian. And Australia, as lovingly recounted in Bill Bryson's In a
Sunburned Country, has the craziest, wildest, deadliest, meanest animals
on the planet. In a place where every spider and squid can take you down
faster than a sucker-punched boxer, you cherish niceness in the animal
kingdom. And they don't come nicer than dogs.
Robyn started us off slowly. She got us a border collie, Hugo, when our
son was about 6. She knew that would appeal to me because the border
collie is the smartest species on the planet. Hugo could 1) play outfield
in our backyard baseball games, 2) do flawless front-door sentry duty, and
3) play psychic weatherman, announcing with a wail every coming
thunderstorm.
When our son Daniel turned 10, he wanted a dog of his own. I was against
it, using arguments borrowed from seminars on nuclear nonproliferation. It
was hopeless. One giant "Please, Dad," and I caved completely. Robyn went
out to Winchester, Va., found a litter of black Labs and brought home
Chester.
Chester is what psychiatrists mean when they talk about unconditional
love. Unbridled is more like it. Come into our house, and he was so happy
to see you, he would knock you over. (Deliverymen learned to leave things
at the front door.)
In some respects - Ph.D. potential, for example - I don't make any great
claims for Chester. When I would arrive home, I fully expected to find
Hugo reading the newspaper. Not Chester. Chester would try to make his way
through a narrow sliding door, find himself stuck halfway and then look at
me with total and quite genuine puzzlement. I don't think he ever got to
understand that the rear part of him was actually attached to the front.
But it was Chester, who dispensed affection as unreflectively as he
breathed, who got me thinking about this long-ago pact between humans and
dogs. Cat lovers and the pet averse will just roll their eyes at such
dogophilia. I can't help it. Chester was always at your foot or your hand,
waiting to be petted and stroked, played with and talked to. His beautiful
blocky head, his wonderful overgrown puppy's body, his baritone bark
filled every corner of house and heart.
Then last month, at the tender age of 8, he died quite suddenly. The long,
slobbering, slothful decline we had been looking forward to was not to be.
When told the news, a young friend who was a regular victim of Chester's
lunging love-bombs said mournfully, "He was the sweetest creature I ever
saw. He's the only dog I ever saw kiss a cat."
Some will protest that in a world with so much human suffering, it is
something between eccentric and obscene to mourn a dog. I think not. After
all, it is perfectly normal, indeed, deeply human to be moved when nature
presents us with a vision of great beauty. Should we not be moved when it
produces a vision - a creature - of the purest sweetness?
From the Jun. 16, 2003 issue of TIME
huge meeting - an international convention with delegates from everywhere.
And that's when they decided that humans were the up-and-coming species
and dogs were going to throw their lot in with them. The decision was
obviously not unanimous. The wolves and dingoes walked out in protest.
Cats had an even more negative reaction. When they heard the news, they
called their own meeting - in Paris, of course - to denounce canine
subservience to the human hyperpower. (Their manifesto - La Condition
Feline - can still be found in provincial bookstores.)
Cats, it must be said, have not done badly. Using guile and seduction,
they managed to get humans to feed them, thus preserving their
superciliousness without going hungry. A neat trick. Dogs, being
guileless, signed and delivered. It was the beginning of a beautiful
friendship.
I must admit that I've been slow to warm to dogs. I grew up in a
non-pet-friendly home. Dogs do not figure prominently in Jewish-immigrant
households. My father was not very high on pets. He wasn't hostile. He
just saw them as superfluous, an encumbrance. When the Cossacks are
chasing you around Europe, you need to travel light. (This, by the way, is
why Europe produced far more Jewish violinists than pianists. Try packing
a piano.)
My parents did allow a hint of zoological indulgence. I had a pet turtle.
My brother had a parakeet. Both came to unfortunate ends. My turtle fell
behind a radiator and was not discovered until too late. And the parakeet,
God bless him, flew out a window once, never to be seen again. After such
displays of stewardship, we dared not ask for a dog.
My introduction to the wonder of dogs came from my wife Robyn. She's
Australian. And Australia, as lovingly recounted in Bill Bryson's In a
Sunburned Country, has the craziest, wildest, deadliest, meanest animals
on the planet. In a place where every spider and squid can take you down
faster than a sucker-punched boxer, you cherish niceness in the animal
kingdom. And they don't come nicer than dogs.
Robyn started us off slowly. She got us a border collie, Hugo, when our
son was about 6. She knew that would appeal to me because the border
collie is the smartest species on the planet. Hugo could 1) play outfield
in our backyard baseball games, 2) do flawless front-door sentry duty, and
3) play psychic weatherman, announcing with a wail every coming
thunderstorm.
When our son Daniel turned 10, he wanted a dog of his own. I was against
it, using arguments borrowed from seminars on nuclear nonproliferation. It
was hopeless. One giant "Please, Dad," and I caved completely. Robyn went
out to Winchester, Va., found a litter of black Labs and brought home
Chester.
Chester is what psychiatrists mean when they talk about unconditional
love. Unbridled is more like it. Come into our house, and he was so happy
to see you, he would knock you over. (Deliverymen learned to leave things
at the front door.)
In some respects - Ph.D. potential, for example - I don't make any great
claims for Chester. When I would arrive home, I fully expected to find
Hugo reading the newspaper. Not Chester. Chester would try to make his way
through a narrow sliding door, find himself stuck halfway and then look at
me with total and quite genuine puzzlement. I don't think he ever got to
understand that the rear part of him was actually attached to the front.
But it was Chester, who dispensed affection as unreflectively as he
breathed, who got me thinking about this long-ago pact between humans and
dogs. Cat lovers and the pet averse will just roll their eyes at such
dogophilia. I can't help it. Chester was always at your foot or your hand,
waiting to be petted and stroked, played with and talked to. His beautiful
blocky head, his wonderful overgrown puppy's body, his baritone bark
filled every corner of house and heart.
Then last month, at the tender age of 8, he died quite suddenly. The long,
slobbering, slothful decline we had been looking forward to was not to be.
When told the news, a young friend who was a regular victim of Chester's
lunging love-bombs said mournfully, "He was the sweetest creature I ever
saw. He's the only dog I ever saw kiss a cat."
Some will protest that in a world with so much human suffering, it is
something between eccentric and obscene to mourn a dog. I think not. After
all, it is perfectly normal, indeed, deeply human to be moved when nature
presents us with a vision of great beauty. Should we not be moved when it
produces a vision - a creature - of the purest sweetness?
From the Jun. 16, 2003 issue of TIME
Mary
From: <kbcdlovejo@...>
<<Some will protest that in a world with so much human suffering, it is
something between eccentric and obscene to mourn a dog. I think not. After
all, it is perfectly normal, indeed, deeply human to be moved when nature
presents us with a vision of great beauty. Should we not be moved when it
produces a vision - a creature - of the purest sweetness? >>
I just loved this. Thanks for posting it.
Mary B
<<Some will protest that in a world with so much human suffering, it is
something between eccentric and obscene to mourn a dog. I think not. After
all, it is perfectly normal, indeed, deeply human to be moved when nature
presents us with a vision of great beauty. Should we not be moved when it
produces a vision - a creature - of the purest sweetness? >>
I just loved this. Thanks for posting it.
Mary B
Have A Nice Day!
From: <kbcdlovejo@...>
<<Some will protest that in a world with so much human suffering, it is
something between eccentric and obscene to mourn a dog. I think not. After
all, it is perfectly normal, indeed, deeply human to be moved when nature
presents us with a vision of great beauty. Should we not be moved when it
produces a vision - a creature - of the purest sweetness? >>
I just loved this. Thanks for posting it.
Yes, thanks for posting this. My animals are very much my other children. I know people who object to that, but I don't care. They have the sweetest and purest spirits and are totally dependent on us, not just for a few years, but for their entire lives. *Everything* about their 'quality' of life depends on how we treat them.
My dog really is one of my best friends, and she knows it. She loves me and asks nothing in return. That is the sweetest kind of love there is.
Kristen
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
<<Some will protest that in a world with so much human suffering, it is
something between eccentric and obscene to mourn a dog. I think not. After
all, it is perfectly normal, indeed, deeply human to be moved when nature
presents us with a vision of great beauty. Should we not be moved when it
produces a vision - a creature - of the purest sweetness? >>
I just loved this. Thanks for posting it.
Yes, thanks for posting this. My animals are very much my other children. I know people who object to that, but I don't care. They have the sweetest and purest spirits and are totally dependent on us, not just for a few years, but for their entire lives. *Everything* about their 'quality' of life depends on how we treat them.
My dog really is one of my best friends, and she knows it. She loves me and asks nothing in return. That is the sweetest kind of love there is.
Kristen
Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
~~~~ Don't forget! If you change topics, change the subject line! ~~~~
If you have questions, concerns or problems with this list, please email the moderator, Joyce Fetteroll (fetteroll@...), or the list owner, Helen Hegener (HEM-Editor@...).
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
coyote's corner
There are those that would not mourn a dog. There are also those that would the extinction of the monarch butterfly. We are not that type of person. Those that are can kiss either one of my cheeks - that way there's little waiting.
Janis
Janis
----- Original Message -----
From: Mary
To: [email protected]
Sent: Saturday, June 14, 2003 8:56 PM
Subject: Re: [Unschooling-dotcom] Totally off-topic---well except for the recent dog-talk
From: <kbcdlovejo@...>
<<Some will protest that in a world with so much human suffering, it is
something between eccentric and obscene to mourn a dog. I think not. After
all, it is perfectly normal, indeed, deeply human to be moved when nature
presents us with a vision of great beauty. Should we not be moved when it
produces a vision - a creature - of the purest sweetness? >>
I just loved this. Thanks for posting it.
Mary B
Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
~~~~ Don't forget! If you change topics, change the subject line! ~~~~
If you have questions, concerns or problems with this list, please email the moderator, Joyce Fetteroll (fetteroll@...), or the list owner, Helen Hegener (HEM-Editor@...).
To unsubscribe from this group, click on the following link or address an email to:
[email protected]
Visit the Unschooling website: http://www.unschooling.com
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
coyote's corner
Okay,
let me fix this - obviously - it's past my bedtime
what I meant to say - there are those that would NOT mourn the extinction of the Monarch butterfly."
BTW-
Some of these same people are actually trying to raise fierce fighting fruglas.
Janis
let me fix this - obviously - it's past my bedtime
what I meant to say - there are those that would NOT mourn the extinction of the Monarch butterfly."
BTW-
Some of these same people are actually trying to raise fierce fighting fruglas.
Janis
----- Original Message -----
From: coyote's corner
To: [email protected]
Sent: Saturday, June 14, 2003 10:13 PM
Subject: Re: [Unschooling-dotcom] Totally off-topic---well except for the recent dog-talk
There are those that would not mourn a dog. There are also those that would the extinction of the monarch butterfly. We are not that type of person. Those that are can kiss either one of my cheeks - that way there's little waiting.
Janis
----- Original Message -----
From: Mary
To: [email protected]
Sent: Saturday, June 14, 2003 8:56 PM
Subject: Re: [Unschooling-dotcom] Totally off-topic---well except for the recent dog-talk
From: <kbcdlovejo@...>
<<Some will protest that in a world with so much human suffering, it is
something between eccentric and obscene to mourn a dog. I think not. After
all, it is perfectly normal, indeed, deeply human to be moved when nature
presents us with a vision of great beauty. Should we not be moved when it
produces a vision - a creature - of the purest sweetness? >>
I just loved this. Thanks for posting it.
Mary B
Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
~~~~ Don't forget! If you change topics, change the subject line! ~~~~
If you have questions, concerns or problems with this list, please email the moderator, Joyce Fetteroll (fetteroll@...), or the list owner, Helen Hegener (HEM-Editor@...).
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Visit the Unschooling website: http://www.unschooling.com
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
~~~~ Don't forget! If you change topics, change the subject line! ~~~~
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