Cruelty Exposed

I took Joe for what was perhaps an overlong walk. As we headed home, he started pulling relentlessly, yanking my shoulder again and again. He'd been managing a puppy-version of a ‘heel’ for most of the walk but now he was pulling and I was tired.

He stopped to poo. Lately he has developed this odd method of meandering while creating a poo trail. As I bent down to scoop it up, piece by piece, an obese dog on a very long lease lunged out of nowhere.

Joe leapt, plunged and tugged the leash with puppyish enthusiasm, nearly knocking me off my feet. I had the poop now in hand but not secured. As I tried to flip the bag over the poop I shot a dark look at dog’s owner. She was a reed thin, girl in overly tight clothing, prim-princess style, hair and make-up done just so, as were her two cloned companions. I announced with very little patience, "I'm trying to pick up his poop."

The girls giggled and cooed, focused only on the pup and more or less totally ignored me.
Joe continued to lunge while I tried to maintain my balance and tie the bag shut. In frustration, I yanked back hard on the leash - and Joe landed hard on his shoulder on the sidewalk. He yelped and I looked behind me to see him sprawled and looking frightened. I apologized to him and he ran to sit between my feet. This hurt; the little guy was running to me for protection– from me.

The plasticine trio of girls had identical appalled looks on their faces. I felt a hot guilt flash over me. One of them seemed to be silently broadcasting from her pinched little eyes, ‘someone like YOU shouldn't be allowed to have an animal.’ As she seemed to be gathering courage to say just that, I shot her an angry look conveying the fact that I still had in hand a pile of unsecured dog leavings. Our telepathy was successful and they minced off in high dudgeon, murmuring about me.

I waited for them to be a safe distance away before continuing home. I checked Joe over, palpating his shoulders and he didn't wince with pain, in fact, he wiggled with puppy-delight at the attentions.

All the way home my mind argued against my lack of emotional control and railed righteously at the girl’s lack of dog control as being the central reason for this entirely ugly incident.

By the time I got home my face was hot and I was nearly in tears. I have never intended to hurt Joe, or to pull him off his feet, or demonstrate my strength over him. Actually, I had no idea that given our relative strengths that it was even possible.

I sank onto the floor a tired Joe sprawled over my lap, spilling onto the floor on both sides and felt truly awful. I was in that moment really angry, not with Joe, but equally apportioned to myself and to those horrible girls.

It was a difficult walk and it made me really think about how I reacted with frustration... and how I could have dealt with this differently.

I suppose everyone gets to a point in their life when they realize with uncomfortable surprise that - this is their Life. This life is what they've created, or perhaps destroyed. It's made up of opportunities taken or ducked, bodies touched or shied from, things spoken or left unsaid.

At this juncture, I feel like I've suddenly awoken. Time, a lot of time, has passed. It's not unlike waking from a self-induced coma and struggling to simultaneously live and mourn the unlived, unrecoverable time.

What now? What's left? What hasn't been begun? What is irretrievable? What is still possible?

While I lumber through the world heavily, Joe the puppy rips it up in his milk teeth, wild-eyed with relish.