is joy going to the dogs?

Welcome to December. This morning I read to our one year old granddaughter Ray Bradbury’s wonderful Dogs Think That Every Day Is Christmas. We both enjoyed it. In fact, it seems to me that toddlers do much better than we “adults” at grasping the fundamental principle of every day being Christmas and full of presents to unwrap and enjoy. When I watch our granddaughter for any extended period of time, it’s clear she enjoys the little and big things in life more than I do. Because she’s less jaded and hasn’t seen it all before? Probably not, since she shows as much joy the seventh, ninth or eleventh time she stacks one block on another as the first time she did it. If one thing isn’t making her happy she goes and finds something else. Adult attitudes ache for adjustment.

Harry (top) and SiSi, pondering what’s next

Photo by J. Harrington

Our dogs frequently enjoy most of their waking hours, except when they’re stuck in their kennels, at which point they often decide to go to sleep until someone comes along to let them out to play. More than once I have wondered if I was training a dog or the dog was training me. If I were as smart as I wish I was, I’d pay more attention and see if the dog’s approach made more sense than mine.

As  an example, I’m sitting and grumbling because it’s damp and cloudy and raw outside, not the kind of weather in which I feel like giving the tractor a needed oil change. Bradbury, on the other hand, writes about how dogs respond to weather, they:

Devour it with wide, bright eyes
That say, “Look at that weather!
Try it on! Just my size!” 

Other writers also understand the joys that dogs create with their exuberance. Gene Hill and Mary Oliver come to mind. Here’s an Oliver poem as an example. Dogs and Christmas: can’t ask for much more.

LUKE

By Mary Oliver

I had a dog
  who loved flowers.
    Briskly she went
        through the fields, 

yet paused
  for the honeysuckle
    or the rose,
        her dark head 

and her wet nose
  touching
    the face
         of every one 

with its petals
  of silk,
    with its fragrance
         rising 

into the air
  where the bees,
    their bodies
        heavy with pollen, 

hovered—
  and easily
     she adored
        every blossom, 

not in the serious,
  careful way
    that we choose
        this blossom or that blossom— 

the way we praise or don’t praise—
  the way we love
     or don’t love—
        but the way 

we long to be—
  that happy
    in the heaven of earth—
        that wild, that loving.

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