"La coeur a ses raisons que raison ne connait point." -- Blaise Pascal
"The heart has its reasons that reason doesn't know."
This quote from Pascal originally applied to God, but it also applies to dogs. Why would anyone in modern society want a dog? I live in the city. I don't hunt foxes and I don't need an animal to herd my sheep or protect my chickens. I have an alarm system installed, so I don't need one to protect my family and belongings. A dog would likely do more damage to my new couch than an intruder. Seattle is known for its vermin (see "The Rat City Roller Girls,") but most people don't have dogs to keep rodents at bay. There is a whole book dedicated to the topic by John Homans called "What's a Dog For?" I haven't read the book, yet. We got it as a Christmas present for my husband who was reluctant to get a four legged pet.
We got a dog yesterday at the U Village "Fido Fest" sponsored by the Seattle Humane Society. His name is Fox and he is a Pomeranian Chihuahua mix, also known as a Pomchi. (Thanks to Mr. Heaps, my sophomore English teacher, who insisted we learn to properly spell and pronounce "Chihuahua," along with "poinsettia." It is somewhat ironic that he emphasized the spelling of a very small dog, considering he lived on a farm with chickens and goats an hour outside of Columbus. My guess is he had large working farm dogs that kept foxes out of the hen house.)
Our family now belongs to the dog culture. People stop us on the street and ask about out dog. They must think we are "dog people," even though we've had Fox for less than 24 hours. The purchase was an impulse buy after two years of deliberation. My husband would have happily researched dogs for ages, picking the right breed, size and temperament for our house and family. By the time he would have finished, the kids would be off at college. This dog passed two important tests that all of the research on the internet would not have told us. First, my daughter thought he was cute. Second, I held him for 10 minutes without a sneeze or tickle in my nose. While I would have loved a lab and border collie mix, they made my eyes itch after petting them for three minutes.
Nothing in my husband's research would have ever told me how a dog would make me smile, how he would give me a reason to walk in the rain.
This blog is about the little and big thoughts that pop into my head. I once read that when Flannery O'Connor walked into a bookstore, she would want to edit her published works with a red pen. In the digital world, we have the luxury of tweaking things up after we've hit the publish button. I can be a perfectionist/procrastinator, where waiting for the ideal means little gets done. Here I will share what is not--and likely will never be--perfect.
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