Twice a month we take Winnie to the outdoor dog kennel a few miles away purely for her enjoyment. We think it’s good for her to spend time with other dogs and to remember how to be around new people. The trainers work a little on basic commands but mostly the dogs spend hours freely roaming the well-maintained, fenced-in property. On her wild and carefree days, Winnie is thrilled to swim in the murky pond and generally consumes a lot of grass or random oddities because she doesn’t have me to stop her. I return at the end of the day and take home a hosed-down, happy dog.
Later, just like clockwork, at around 3:00 am, Winnie throws up whatever it was she grazed on earlier in the day. This doesn’t happen every time, but often enough for it to feel like a nauseating and suspenseful game of chance when we go to sleep on kennel nights.
Winnie sleeps at our feet on a large, chocolate brown towel laid to save the quilt and to define her personal space, although most often in the middle of the night we find her tucked between us, prone, with her feet in the air. On kennel nights I wake with a start as her stomach muscles tighten and she begins to lurch, making that unmistakable sound causing humans to spring into action to try and save the carpet or the furniture. Winnie expels on the towel and I hold her ears, as though I’m holding a roommate's hair while they lean over a toilet bowl after a wild party, offering words of encouragement. Only this party happened earlier in the day, by the pond.
“Wow. It happened again.” I thought last night as I gazed out the window at the strawberry moon, holding a towel under Winnie’s chin at 4:15 am, a little off the norm.
There’s not a lot we can do to prevent this from happening short of not sending Winnie for her exhilarating day at the kennel. I think it’s important she has this opportunity to interact with a new pack and get out from under my watchful eye. And it makes sense for her to have a little time to feel wild and free because she spends a lot of time on leash. I want this joy for her. I’m intentional with this choice and I understand why other people would find it intolerable. It is kind of terrible to be awakened in such a way. Creating a sense of compassion is how I choose to love her, the essential word here is ‘choose’.
The ways in which we love are complex and unique. I’ve recently decided to become aware of the choices I make on behalf of others, especially if I opt to tolerate the things that really annoy me. To own the choice and not blame the other. This story about Winnie illustrates the concept beautifully. Winnie will not stop eating pond grass. Being aware it is my choice to continue to tolerate the repercussions helps because it eliminates tension. I could make a different decision if I wanted to, it wouldn’t kill her to not go to the kennel. But with eyes wide open, for her I choose joy, I want that more than an uninterrupted sleep now and again. Clarity and self-awareness about our decisions ward off resentment.
We don’t choose who we love, that happens in the sacred space of providence. But we do get to choose how we love and live. As for Winnie, we will allow her periodic pond dippings and live with the consequences under the light of a strawberry moon. Quietly, she lays her head between us like an apology. We understand, there’s no need to be sorry, we own the choice.
Copyright (2021) Suzanne Bayer. All Rights Reserved