Sugar on My Lap

First post with Sugar sitting on my lap as I write. Pardon me for any lapses in thought, as I must stroke Sugar every ten seconds to quell her curiosity about the tapping of the keys and put her back into her sleepy trance.

The subject I'd like to address today is house training, for dogs and humans. To begin, the sage and solon of doggery today is The Dog Whisperer, Cesar Milan. According to Cesar, the order of importance of training any pup is: discipline, exercise, affection. The discipline consists in getting one's puppy to "go potty, Sugar," at this point. This entails watching the pup like a hawk and getting her on the pads at the moment she begins to sniff the floor and circle. Then we whisk her to the pads, and like idiots repeat her mantra, "Go Potty," about twenty times till she forces out whatever is in her (merely to oblige us) to heaps of praise and a sweet treat or a milk bone (in her case a quarter of a milk bone, as she only weights 3.1 pounds). We, meaning I, repeat the drill upon waking, after breakfast, mid-morning, after lunch, mid-afternoon, after dinner, mid-evening, before bed, and any other time she sniffs and circles. Dear reader, bear with me as I move through this inarticulate period of puppy house training. It's mind-numbing, and not at all conducive to clever ideas. The clever idea  itself is to get through this period and earn freedom to think and try to entertain you. So hang on. Read inane scribblings for a few weeks. Please indulge me and I promise to to take plenty of CoQ to get my brain in order again. Or just in order.

Now to the point: Discipline, exercise, affection. For Sugar, this means potty training misery for a time and endless shrieks about chewing potentially poisonous house plants. Discipline is hard, yes. But utterly necessary. It's apparently a fact that the primary reason dogs end up in shelters is because they haven't been disciplined not to leave steaming messes all over their humans' carpets and newly re-sanded hardwood floors.

Next: exercise. Most breeds must be exercised vigorously. This means three-mile walks thrice a day. This is also discipline plus exercise for the human. In Sugar's case, I'm delighted to report, it means that I (or hubby) sit on the floor and throw a tennis ball down the length of the kitchen tiles about twenty times, and exercise is over -- for both of us.

Next, affection: You will have no difficulty understanding by now that if I had to take 3 three-mile walks a day in sub-freezing weather, ice and snow  permanent fixtures underfoot, that even in Uggs I would probably be sorely tried to feel affection for my dog. I apologize to Animalists the world over, but we're all God's creatures, individual as the stars in the sky. This is what (or whom) toy Poodles are for. I can smother her with kisses, she has a tiny dry pink tongue with which to smother me with kisses, and so we get on together just fine.

And when you think about it, isn't it the same in human life? We need discipline (how else to rise in the morning when in the middle of a rare sweet dream?) and put down the novel at night before 3am. We need exercise in order to continue to consume the delicious meals served by local gourmet establishments and brought to our door by Delivery Now. And we need affection. We need love. We crave love. We die for love. We search for love on J Date and Christian Meeting. We hook up in bars. We dress up in sexy garb (we hope) for the other in our life. Without love, life is a dog in an animal shelter for three score and seven.

And so I come to my conclusion, born of the dizzying watchfulness for sniffing and circling: People and dogs are not alike. We live in the reverse order. We need affection before discipline; discipline might be the by-product of love. We need love before exercise: exercise too might be a by-product of love and the wish to please the beloved. (This naturally pertains only to the lazy among us.)

Yes, affection must come first for humans. And that perhaps is why God gave humans dominion over the animal kingdom. It's a privilege to love. All the rest is secondary. We train and instruct our pets, give them our love, and become more human in the process. It's why I have Sugar. All glibness aside, I'm trying to increase my capacity for humaneness, for what it means to be human. At my age (61, if I haven't mentioned that hateful number before) one begins to peer over the summit of the mountain and wonder what the rest is for. It looks so grubby. What's to look forward to? Drooping skin? Arthritis? And bingo! An idea. Perhaps this time is for enlarging one's capacity for what it means to be human.

I promise you more coherent and lively posts in future. If you will stick by me. Support yourself by the knowledge that in indulging me, you too are increasing your capacity for what it means to be human. Or just consider it discipline, and exercise for the eyes. Affectionately...