Sedition

I have been kind of busy lately and neglecting this but before I go back to work, I want to make a point about the deplorable political apathy among dogs.

Freddie is a good dog. He is more or less house-trained, well-mannered to children, respectful of his elders and pretty good about not chewing stuff he's not supposed to. In fact his status as a good dog depends on all this. But the dog remains fundamentally an animal stranger in a human world. He is kept apart from other dogs, he is forced to comply with human laws which must seem completely arbitrary and capricious to a dog of Freddie's intellect and sensitivity to natural justice. He strains at the leash when he sees other dogs and calls to them in the same way as I would call to another human if I encountered one on another planet. "What the hell is going on here?" I would ask, "Who are these oddly shaped people? Are there others of our kind? Do they have meetings I could go to?"

I suppose dogs and people have been living together with no major breakdown in relations for thousands of years, and little yokes like Fred have probably been catching rats and things for us for hundreds of years at least, but blood is thicker than water and when a dog sees a dog, he knows it's a dog, and it must remind him of their shared alienation in a foreign world.

And yet, he whimpers with pleasure when he sees his leash being unhooked from the wall. He dances with giddiness when I fix a tether to his neck and lead him by the throat like a slave in a Roman triumph. Personally, and because of certain inherited loyalties, I am on the side of the imperialist human oppressor over the loyal and humble dog race, but a less partisan observer might be disappointed to see the lack of political maturity that seems characteristic of most dogs. But then, I suppose it's always a danger with an enslaved population, who have more to lose than their leashes, that they end up internalising the logic of the oppressor. It's what makes him a good dog.

Hats

I take Freddie on his daily walk up and around my immediate neighbourhood, a place which retains wistful memories of being something close to countryside, even though it is buried under a spreading blanket of suburban housing.

So what this means is that I am not the only person out there walking in wet weather. There are joggers and pairs of speedwalking ladies and the odd woman with a baby in a buggy (the baby, let's hope, experiencing the rain on its clear plastic cover as something melancholic and psychedelic rather than feeling like a processed chicken left in a shopping trolley). If it is raining and I am feeling gloomy I find myself judging these people - especially the speedwalkers since I find it difficult not to be a little judgemental of speedwalkers at the best of times - but I also find myself wondering how I appear to my neighbours as I rove out with the little dog trotting along beside me. Some young mothers give me distinctly hostile looks as I pass, others give a friendly little smile and a nod to the dog. Some give me a look that seems to say "Yeah, right you think your dog is cute. My child surpasses the living shit out of your stupid dog when it comes to both cuteness and responsibility." I may be too sensitive.

Dog walkers tend to either give a firm and friendly nod of solidarity or else avoid eye contact altogether, depending largely on whether or not one of our dogs looks like it may be trying to ride the other. I haven't figured out the complex nexus of solidarity, competition and wariness that seems to constitute the casual encounter between dog owners. I'll keep an eye on it.

But I think I look the part out walking the dog. I feel like I am cutting, if not a dash, then at the very least something resembling a figure. I have got into the habit of wearing one of my dad's old hats when it rains. It's a grey felt trilby or possibly a grey felt fedora (I do not - to my very great shame - know the difference between a trilby and a fedora). It's quite a grown-up looking hat, and not something to be worn by a callow boy. I feel quite responsible and respectable walking along with my nice little dog and my grey felt hat, although I am not certain if that is how I appear to others, particularly when Freddie and I take a detour through my old primary school. I sometimes think it would be nice to bump into an old teacher from primary school and introduce them to my dog, but there is a strong possibility that they would consider me an undesirable type and call the Guards. (My image as a solidly respectable citizen may be compromised a little by the rainbow scarf which I have sometimes worn out. If I were a primary school teacher I would look askance at a man in a rainbow scarf walking a puppy around a primary school, no matter how distinguished their trilby or fedora.)

Or homburg, but I'm pretty sure it's not a homburg.

Dogshit and the Responsible Citizen

What do you think when you see a person bending over to pick up a lump (if they are lucky) of dogshit while their dog waits with an air of patient condescension to get on with its walk? Do you think "There goes a responsible pet-owner fulfilling his or her civic function with regard to their dog and showing the correct consideration for his or her fellow citizens!" or do you think "Look at that poor sap picking up dogshit, and note also the smirk on the dog's face..."?

The picking up of dogshit is not something I really want to dwell on, but the question of cleaning up after your dog throws light on a person's approach to their civic duties. I don't throw litter and I have even been known on a rare occasion to pick up somebody else's (I also rescue earthworms who find themselves stranded on the concrete after rain, but that is a slightly different matter) but I do find it hard to stoop to handle and dispense with Freddie's excrement. I feel a curious mix of heroism and humiliation when I place a plastic bag in my pocket before a walk.

My current policy is largely influenced by whether or not the dog has been observed shitting, and where. If I'm on a country road and nobody is about I am happy to consider the dog's droppings a gift to nature and a contribution to the country air; if I am near houses and bins I make the effort to demonstrate my sense of civic spirit by bending over to pick the shit up. If the dog has been observed by another pedestrian and the pedestrian looks like they might have an opinion about a dog-turd being left in their path, I generally do the right thing; but if the incident is observed by slow-moving traffic, I tend to hover over the shit, looking like I am going to do something about it, and then proceed when the traffic is out of the way.

I also don't know if I am more embarrassed to be seen picking up the dog shit or not picking up the dog shit. I should really have developed enough of a sense of my own self, and of right and wrong, not to be so easily led by the opinions of others, but there you go.

What does my unprincipled approach to dogshit tell me about the deeper workings of my soul? Well, for one thing, my conscience requires a public. The continued dance of seduction between my sense of duty and my personal convenience is conducted through the specific circumstances of Freddie's crapping. I hope some day to achieve an ungrudging and unsupervised sense of responsibility to my fellow citizens when it comes to this, but while I am working towards this state of political maturity I can only promise to try to overcome my natural selfishness for the good of my neighbours and, indeed, of the country and the Irish people generally.