I believe every human is a type of dog, a breed and often with their own characteristics. So I started to see Ralph in the eyes of humans. Because I was treating humans with the love of dogs, the line started to blur between what a dog and a human are. So I accidentally spoke to a Dog, forgetting he couldn’t talk back and because I forgot he did too.
“Hey man, can you come over, my dog is lost,” messaged my friend Wayne,
“Sure man, be there in 5!”, I replied and rushed over to his house.
Walking to the front door Wayne sat next to his dog.
“I thought you said he was lost?”
“He is, spiritually,”
“Oh,” I said with relief that he was safe but then thought maybe that’s a worse type of lost.
“Can you talk to him?”
“Of course.”
I had the ability to speak with dogs. Only alone, so Wayne went to his Bedroom. Why I could only speak to them alone, I don’t know. If I did know maybe I could change it. I think it was one of those natural hands of God, so I couldn’t exploit it and have talk shows with dogs. Then the fame would get to my head and the ability to speak to them would be wasted because I'm an idiot. I still am an idiot of course, but I know it.
I learnt how to speak to dogs about 10 years ago, when I was thirteen. It all started when I lost my dog to Cancer, it was horrible. Through grief I learnt to see my dog, Ralph in the eyes of all dogs. So the love I had for him was now littered through the world of canines. It taught me that if I can love one dog, I can love them all. So why not humans?
I believe every human is a type of dog, a breed and often with their own characteristics. So I started to see Ralph in the eyes of humans. Because I was treating humans with the love of dogs, the line started to blur between what a dog and a human are. So I accidentally spoke to a Dog, forgetting he couldn’t talk back and because I forgot he did too.
Wayne’s dogs name was Bronson and he was a rottweiler. A big and comfortable one like Wayne. Often people make it very easy for you to see them as a dog because they would buy themselves.
“What's wrong Bronson?” I asked,
“Nothing.”
“Then what is Wayne worried about?”
“It’s because I don’t want to go for a walk,”
“But you love walking?”
“Sometimes I don’t… sometimes I do, it annoys me that if I make a subtle change to my desires that people consider something wrong with me.”
“Yes, I often think that too. So what is it you want to do?”
“I want to sit here and observe the sadness that bubbles in my stomach. Its annoying that when I don’t want to do something, as small as go for a walk, the world thinks I want to kill myself.”
“It is,”
“William?”
“Yes Bronson?”
“Can you truly love a desire?”
“It’s an interesting concept Bronson because desires have been labelled as a negative thing in most religions. Also, it depends what your definition of true love is?”
“I think true love is accepting someone for whoever they are, which is accepting yourself for who you are, often its dirty work”.
“Is it always worth it?” I asked Bronson,
“I don’t understand the question,” he replied,
“Is true love always worth it? The time, the energy expenditure, the pain and the sorrow, a present so special that future presence yearn for the past,”
“What would we do instead?” he asked,
“We could be safe”.
“There is this quote that I read one day,” said Bronson, sitting with his front paws crossed, “it was about ships being safer in the harbour but that’s not what they’re made for,”
“Yeah, I've heard that quote. Do you think someone made us Bronson?”
“It’s irrelevant, we are here,”
“I feel frustration within you man, do you want a pat?”
“Yes please”
So I pat Bronson behind the ear and then gently rub his back. It was not sexual.
“You know man, we are always alone really” Said Bronson with a sense of calmness from the pat, “Even if I spend every hour with Wayne, and you know I love Wayne?”
“Of course”
“Sometimes I feel the loneliest when I'm with people. I think language has tricked us to think loneliness and alone are the same thing.”
“Well, like you said, we are always alone. But it raises a thought of duality, do you know about duality Bronson?”
“Yes and No.”
We laughed. Dogs laugh by wagging their tails. Bronson didn’t have much of a tail but you could tell. Humans laugh by making a noise. Every human has a different noise the same way dogs have different tails. Laughing was universal and that made me love the universe.
“Well” I said to Bronson the 36kg rottweiler, “ you know that every definition withholds its opposite. So if we are always alone, then we also never are”.
“How can we never be alone?” he asked,
“I think we carry the universe in our minds. The past and the future. All possibilities. But at the same time, a part of us is just a stupid little voice. An ant in a packet of Sugar”
“Do you think sugar makes ants fat?” Bronson asked,
“I don’t know”.
“Because I've never seen a fat ant, but I see them all the time with sugar. I know I can’t eat chocolate right? And processed sugar is poisoning the population from the inside out with you humans. But look at the size of you, the size of us, shouldn’t it kill an ant instantly?”
“Maybe their mouths aren’t strong enough to eat more than they shouldn’t,”
“Their weakness is their strength,” said Bronson stoically.
The pat had really opened the floodgates of the words that were clogged in his beautifully shaped skull.
“I just feel so restricted sometimes,” said Bronson,
“In what way?”
“Just how we place this narrow line to walk on and if anyone veers from that they’re considered crazy. Or they should be given pity. I mean c’mon man, look at this, I didn’t want to go for a walk for one day and Wayne called me spiritually inept”
“He said spiritually lost”
“I know I made a better definition”
“Bronson, I went through all this when I first started talking to dogs. My own family was calling me nuts,”
“How did you cope with that?”
“Its an ongoing battle. One thing that I really had to learn was that doing the opposite of what someone told you is still a form of control,”
“Can you give me an explanation?” Bronson asked.
He was so big and cute I just wanted to hug him.
“Well say if someone told you to sit and you really didn’t like them, so you stood up the whole day to spite them, but you wanted to sit anyway, so now you are doing something you don’t want to do to prove a point. That’s still control.”
“Cause they altered my actions,”
“Yeah.”
“Well” said Bronson, “that makes me think about desires. If they’re so bad according to say Buddhism and stuff, then what guide within are you meant to follow?”
“I honestly don’t know, maybe its one of those things that we never know. So we have to watch it, watch as we move away from that feeling of being in touch with your soul.”
“I read this other quote, Do it once it will never happen again, do it twice its sure to happen a third time”, Bronson said, looking out the window with his big brown eyes.
“So like, you can try everything once and be honest of how it made you feel?”
“Yeah, I guess so. Mindfulness. You know what William?”
“Yeah brons”
“I do want to go for a walk. I just didn’t like how it was expected of me,”
“Ok, that’s good awareness man, you have to realise its coming from a place of love and Wayne cant communicate with you like this, so he is worried about you,”
“I know, I know all of that but I still get upset,” Bronson confided,
“I know, so do I, but we can alchemise the frustration to compassion with awareness,”
“That’s true. I know why you can talk to dogs,” said Bronson the giant gorgeous rottweiler,
“Why?” I asked,
“Because you listen to them”.
“I would be crazy not to.” I replied and I pat him under his jaw, right in the spot he loved, the same place I patted my boy ralph and felt his inflamed glands. I really did love him. I loved everyone, even when I forgot”
“I will speak to Wayne,” I said, “I will ask him to trust you, to let you be sad when you want, to let you go where your heart feels to, to go the wrong way to see a new perspective, to get lost to allow your mind to find itself, and maybe set up a system, that tells Wayne when you want to go for a walk and when you don’t. Its all just communication and I know sometimes its hard, and when you cant be heard that’s when we feel lonely. But what's most important is that you can hear yourself, because you are your own best friend Bronson.”
“How bout this?” Bronson said, “ You can truly love desire, but you shouldn’t desire true love”
“I will think about it.”
