forgiveness
Seems like forgiving humans is one of those doggie things we’re all supposed to do. Like having zoomies or doing bed boogies.
It’s written into our canine souls.
Well, somehow I didn’t get the memo, the one that apparently went out to every other dog on the planet, about forgiveness.
Why should I forgive the humans who tossed me and my siblings out into the night? When you forgive, you lose your anger, and when you lose your anger, you get weak.
And when you’re weak, you can get hurt all over again.
the art of human watching
By the time we reach the park, the sky is definitely in a bad mood. Gray clouds galloping like panicked horses. The nervous scent of rain on the way, the kind that makes you antsy in your own skin.
When we get near the employee entrance, I hop into Julia’s backpack, like always. We enter through the special gate, where George shows his ID, checks in, and says hi to the staff.
Pet dogs aren’t allowed at the park, natch. Foxes, wolves, jackals? My dog cousins? They are. But in my opinion, even though they’re technically part of my extended family, they’re nothing like dogs.
Only dogs have perfected the art of human watching.
The smartest thing we ever did was figure out how important the human gaze is. So often when we follow our owners’ eyes, we’re rewarded with something amazing.
A smelly sock!
A glazed doughnut!
A glazed doughnut that’s fallen on a smelly sock!
We follow every blink, every sidelong glance.
We see it, whatever it is, before humans do.
We understand before they do.
And if there’s a glazed doughnut involved, we eat it before they do.
puppy eyes
It’s midmorning, still pretty early. There aren’t many visitors around yet. “We’ve got a meeting in twenty,” George tells a couple workers, Hank and Sonia, who groan. “Just a quick one. Going over contingency plans one last time, in case there’s any flooding.”
During the last hurricane, a small part of the park flooded, mostly near Reptileville. George helped move cages. He came home smelling like cottonmouths and copperheads. It was all I could do not to barf.
“Weather service just issued a tornado watch,” Hank says.
“I thought we were having a hurricane,” Julia says.
“We are. Gus. But sometimes tornadoes are spawned during hurricanes,” George explains.
Julia frowns. “But a watch means ‘maybe,’ not ‘for sure,’ right?”
“Yeah, but I want you to head home,” George says, “just in case.”
“Please, Dad? Just ten minutes?” Julia says. She’s using the special voice she reserves for moments when she really, really wants something from her parents.
I guess kids manipulate their moms and dads the same way dogs manipulate humans.
“I don’t know—” George begins.
“I promised Bob.”
I figure that’s my cue to pop my head out and look adorable. So I do.
“Hey, Bob,” says Hank. Sonia reaches over and scratches my ears.
I’m pretty popular around the park.
I give George my best puppy eyes, and he caves.
“Ten minutes, tops,” he says. “Meet me back here.”
Puppy eyes.
Works every time.
mr. oog
Here’s how I figure puppy eyes got their start.
Cave humans were sitting around a fire, wearing mammoth fur and grunting about how there was nothing on TV because TV hadn’t been invented yet, and some wily wolf thought, Whoa, they’ve got leftover mammoth meat!
And he probably whimpered and cowered and did a tummy display and looked pathetic enough that Mr. Oog finally tossed him a bone. And soon enough, a few zillion years later: voilà! Man’s best friend.
After all that time, there’s a thing, like a magnetic attraction, between dogs and humans. We’ve studied them for so long we can read every twitch and sigh.
S’pose it was easier than chasing down mammoths.
And I get it. I do.
The behind-the-ear scratch. The food in a fancy bowl. The bed by the fireplace.
Gotta admit that Julia’s pretty fun to hang out with. And I’m grateful, really I am, that her family took me in.
Still, I don’t need them.
You need someone, eventually they let you down and you end up feeling like a real doofus.
the park
As Julia walks, I sneak peeks out of her backpack, like I always do.
We pass the meerkat family, poking out from their den holes like the Whac-A-Mole game they used to have at Mack’s mall. I see the flashy flamingos, with their one-legged balancing act. And the terrifyingly beautiful tigers. Even their cute cubs give me the willies.
Families, I’ve noticed, take a lot of different shapes. Jim and Joe, the penguins, adopted an abandoned egg, and they are the sweetest doting parents you ever saw. I see it with humans at the park, too. Families of all shapes and sizes and colors and genders and yep, they all seem to do just fine.
We round a corner past Sea Otter Alley. Oliver and Olivia are floating calmly on their backs, holding each other’s paws. It’s pretty adorable, I have to admit. But me, I don’t need the trouble that comes with family.
Babies puking. Toddlers whining. Spouses nagging.
Talk about a design flaw.
change
The park’s pretty big. Lots of twisty paths and fascinating smells. All the parts have names. There’s the African Aviary. The Outback. Penguin Cove. Lemur Land.
It’s like puzzle pieces of the world—a little Africa here, a little Asia there.
Dogs, you can find us pretty much everywhere. Our territory is Earth. As long as we’re hooked up with humans, that is.
Along the shady paths, volunteer guides will answer your questions. They’ll tell you about how animals used to roam one part of the world or another until things changed.
Things change.
That’s one thing I’ve figured out. Don’t ever assume a little patch of the planet belongs to you.
Things change. Boxes go flying.
my inner wolf
On our way, we always stop by the wolf habitat. Julia loves wolves. Probably because they remind her of me.
You have to look hard, maybe squint a little, but if you try, you can catch a hint of my inner wolf.
It’s in the eyes, mostly. Also in my distinguished profile.
I dream I’m a wolf sometimes, and when I wake up, I’m panting and my fur’s on alert and I’m feeling Yeah, the world could hurt me, but I could hurt the world right back even harder. Like there’s a dangerous, hard part of me chained inside, struggling to go free and just, I dunno, get even.
Then I go see what’s for breakfast.
kimu
There’s a gray wolf at the park who makes me a little jittery.
Jittery, as in I sometimes worry he might like to eat me.
His name is Kimu, and we struck up a conversation when a mutual acquaintance of ours, a mockingbird called Mitch, introduced us one day.
Like Nutwit, Mitch likes to taunt me because I’m domesticated. Gives me a lot of grief about how free he is, soaring stringless over the whole town.