My hallelujah,
Last week, you took your first hard bite.
I do not think it was an intentional, aggressive nip, though it might have been. You were roughhousing at the dog park with your regular woofpack. You disappeared into a joyous scrum of slobber and tail. I could not see you.
But I heard you. I know your yelp. Mothers always do. Your grandmother says a parent not only knows their baby’s cry, but knows what that cry is communicating: fear, hunger, pain. This was pain.
You bolted from the pack and thundered toward the end of the park. You let out another yelp as you galloped, although you were far from anyone. I will never forget that image, of you, in flight and in pain.
There was no stopping or catching you. Those paws kicked up mud like a Clydesdale (Take no offense: I love, LOVE that you are a big girl. Distrust anyone who does not).
You did not stop until you reached the chain link fence at the corner of the park, where you trembled near the gate, perhaps asking to go home. When I got there, you shivered a bit as I checked you for a cut, a gash, a bullet or knife wound. Nothing. Just fray.
So I coaxed you back, stooping as we walked with my hand on your side as if I were a banister for a toddler, which I guess I was (you’re not even four years old in human measure). I will never forget that image, either.
Your walkers, who saw the skirmish, told me the dog that bit you was not part of their clique, but a pit bull that often wants to join the club. Last year, they said, he nearly bit another dog’s ear off. They tried to get his human banned from the park, but I guess it is hard to prove assholery, let alone prosecute it.
That is not the point. This is: Some days are going to fall on the hard. And when they do, it is rarely personal.
It can be difficult, not taking hurt personally. Your grandfather could not do it. Often, I cannot, either. Grudges are easier so see, easier to hold, easier to swallow than indifference. Indifference is like a water-flavored rawhide. What is the fun of chewing something if you cannot taste its disintegration?
But keep this in mind as you bound ever forward, youngling: You have no right to someone’s opinion of you. And when you do get it, it is likely projection, not reflection.
Which was probably the case last week. Pitty belongs to — and I’m sorry to use this language — a Bad Dog. Maybe the dad is insecure. Maybe he is overcompensating his courage. Maybe he is just an asshole.
The point is, it was not you. There are only two things to do when you meet a Biter: let it go, or learn from it. Given your ode to joy dance when we rejoined the pack, my guess is you already did the former. I will do the latter. That is my job.
But if a day does fall on the hard, and you are feeling the gnash and gnarl, you know where I’ll be. At the end of the fence, by the gate, stooping to walk you wherever you need to be.
