In my life I have always loved animals, and there was a lucky period, between my 8 and 12 years of age, in which I lived on a farm with dozens, hundreds of animals, obviously also domestic, with an all-time high of 3 dogs and 5 cats who lived in harmony with each other.
Unfortunately I then had to wait until the ripe old age of 54 to have another pet, and precisely a dog, a wonderful Husky puppy named Masha.
And it was only then that something changed, and I began to look sadly at many dogs I met…
Here in Mogliano we are practically in the countryside, many houses have a garden, and it is therefore very common for people to own dogs, before adopting Masha I didn't realize it but there are really many, NOW I realize it, and I owe it right to Masha.
I often take her for a run with me, a light jog just to stretch my legs and ventilate my lungs well, the idea of combining the usefulness of taking the dog out and staying healthy with the pleasure of going for a walk and getting to know the place where i live.
Masha is a happy puppy, super pampered since birth by her family of origin and mine, she paws around, explores, smells everything, and above all she tries to socialize with practically any being she meets, humans, other dogs, and even (with limited success) with cats, I encourage her natural nature, stopping as much as possible and letting her do it.
And at this point a little revelation: is it possible that, despite all these "favorable" conditions, mine is the only (or one of the very few) happy dog I meet during these walks? Sometimes doubt makes itself felt.
While we walk/run I see the other dogs, they can be in a garden or on a balcony and typically in this case they bark at us and only very rarely can they be persuaded not to make all that mess, I often have time to see a sad and bored look before they begin and to show persistent anger, that tenacious anger that has even coined a verb in Italian: “accanirsi” (when it rages implacably and senselessly) or a word like “canicola” (when it so hot that the dogs freak out).
Or I can be on a walk with their masters, most of the time people who are no longer very young, and then the ritual of contact between the dogs begins: first an interested look, then "pulling" the master to try to convince him to stop, then a few cautious sniffs and finally the game, version with a "happy ending", or an aggressive snap with an attempt to bite.
It is important to note that in both cases I feel a certain sadness, certainly higher when I see adult dogs trying to bite a wagging puppy, but also present in the case of a happy ending because from the impetuous joy of the other dog it is clear that the "happy ending" is far from the most common event experienced.
Curious, after thinking about it for a long time, you decide to adopt a wonderful little creature, you're happy, even more so because you see her happy, but you notice things that almost didn't exist before….and you get sad!
Then the left side of my brain is stimulated and research and reflections start: we have a millenary relationship with our four-legged friends, and it is an intense relationship to the point of having had a heavy influence on the evolution of dogs, but also on habits/ uses/customs of us two-legged killers, just think that there are activities (modern hunting) and even entire human communities (for example the Siberian tribes which are the origin of the husky breed) which practically could not exist without the cooperation with our faithful friends.
Many of the people who own a dog openly talk about it as a non-human member of the family, the desire to live with a dog can be very intense, like the pain for its passing, it is as if these animals were a part of us, something for which an intimate relationship develops, even more so since, unlike cats, these animals end up relying only on us for their subsistence and survival, we have a total and pervasive control of them.
And this is precisely the point (the big professor inside me intervenes straight leg), total control, many of our friends' behaviors are strongly influenced by us, they are in a certain sense a real projection of us, of our fears , of our desires…. our furry friends probably don't understand many things, but they certainly understand that by adopting certain behaviors they can make us happy or not, and they act accordingly.
So they "ARE", "REPRESENT" our desires, they are what they are because they have transformed themselves in an attempt to make us happy, they have become what they are to fulfill our desires, they are the only animals version-lamp-of -Aladdin : you give them a few caresses and they take the shape you want, for some things, like a basic obedience course, the process is rapid, for others it can be almost as slow as a normal evolutionary process and go through many lives , but they always try hard (lol) and in the end they give you what you want!.
After the professor's internal voice, that of the therapist/hypnotist/coach/healer intervenes inside me: here's another demonstration that not always having our wishes fulfilled is a guarantee of satisfaction, even less of happiness.
Who can please a group of noisy, threatening and tenaciously persistent dogs in a public place and in a context of absolute peace and everyday life? Who would like the uncertainty that comes with not knowing whether we're going to get a lick on the face or a bite on the hand? what pleasure can be derived from threatening behavior in a pet that lives in symbiosis with a human being? I would tell no one, or at least no sane one!
And yet, this is what we wanted, and we got it 100%, we genetically selected living creatures and trained them, we spent (quite a few) resources precisely to get this: not being able to take a walk in a small quiet town without be deafened by barks and growls!
As I always tell my clients and friends: be careful what you ask for, because you might get it!
