“Why a self-help book for dogs? Because leadership is more than just going first.” –Shyly D. Lightful
Launching Sunday: The scientific art of getting lost, for dogs, a benevolently funny shaggy-dog story – written by a shaggy dog – for four-year-olds.
The theme? The ontology and teleology of leadership, loyalty and storgic love within the family.
Oh, yes! The world is my oyster. I can take a gruesome homework assignment like that and make you and your kids laugh at it over and over again.
You wanted an art to change the culture. I can show you how to make it.
Like this:
And now you know what matters most to Big-O. He’s a giant of a dog, a full-blood Bloodhound, russet red with a tiny patch of white on his breast. I’m a mutt, so I’m the runt in our pack, barely 60 pounds. The two Coon Hounds come in at around 80. But Odysseus is big even for a male Blood. He’s easily 110 pounds – before dinnertime. He’s big and game and goofy and naturally dominant, the uncontested leader of our little family – when our people aren’t around.
He went through the long, slow process of getting to his feet, engaging each muscle and bone separately. Don’t kid yourself; he can be up in a shot when he needs to be – like when someone drops a slice of ham in the kitchen. But normally he likes to express his regal indomitability by taking his time when there is time to be taken. Rank has its privileges.
He sauntered over to us, the question of the hour still burning in his big, droopy brown eyes: “Dinnertime?”
You’d think he wouldn’t have to ask, but Desi always knows to the minute when it’s time for us to be fed. Don’t ask me how; the girl matches patterns incessantly. But you don’t have to know time to the minute to know that the sun was too high in the sky for dinner, so I said, “Not for a long time. You know that.”
He gave me a sheepish look, but I know he didn’t mean it. There is something in every dog that believes that campaigning for dinner causes dinner. Even though Desdemona has worked out the exact sequence of events leading to dinner – such that she knows precisely when it’s going to happen every day – even so Odysseus never quite gives up on his favorite moral lodestone: You never can tell.
“We’re going to save the elephant!” Ophelia said that, of course.
“Going? Going where? Going for a ride?” If you want to push Odysseus off the subject of food, promise him a ride in the car.
“Not going for a ride, you big oaf. Going outside.” Everyone loves Desdemona, no matter how hard she makes it.
Ophelia was scampering and yipping, and, despite myself, I started to bark joyously, too. I thought going out without our people sounded like a terrible idea, but still… Outside…
Odysseus barked once, briefly, but with every bit of his authority – such that little wisps of dust wafted down through the air from the ceiling-fan blades overhead. We all settled down and shut up, just like that. He said, “If we’re going anywhere, we should go through that cold hallway in the kitchen.”
“Hallway?” said Ophelia. “In the kitchen?”
“He means the refrigerator,” Desi drawled.
“The refrigerator?”
“Silver doors. Overlit. Cold air.”
“Oh, yeah! That. Smells wonderful…”
“Smells wonderful!” Odysseus agreed. “And that’s why we should go that way.”
I shook my head. And if I’m the voice of reason, reason is whispering. “It’s not a hallway. I think it’s just a box.”
The way Desdemona shivered made me think she knows what she’s talking about: “It’s just a box.”
“Oh, well,” Odysseus said with a shrug. “We don’t know how to open it, anyway.” He turned to lumber back toward the television, back to his cooking shows.
“But what about the elephant?”
Big-O gave Little-O a look of loving indulgence. “An elephant would never fit in there. Besides, Shyly says it’s just a box.”
