I understand, I really do. I got the email with Maggie's picture, followed by Mom's enthusiastic report that they were adding a new member to the family!!--and part of me curled into that, in the somewhat deluded idea that my absence had left such a gaping hole in their lives that they needed to fill it by any means possible. Oh God, how can we ever survive without her? Then the emails became more plentiful, the photographs more flattering than any evidence of MY first few years on the planet, and I started to get suspicious. You see, I've observed my mother around animals; maybe it's one of those genes that skips a generation, but place her in front of a prison lineup consisting of humans and cats, and she'll be hard-pressed to tell you which one she gave birth to. She pampers her cats, snuggles them, cradles them, and feeds them to the point of no return. Take one look at Ernest, our tank of a cat who has now reached the point in his obesity where he struggles with bathing, and you'll understand. Anyhow. When I saw the same infatuation creeping up between my mom and the newest creature, I figured it would be like the cats only more: more energy, more responsibility, and more to love. More for her to love, sure, but more for me as well. After all, I had dogs once! I love dogs.
Correction: I love dog. As in, one. And she died when I was thirteen.
Memories of Nellie came flooding back to me, actually, as I approached Maggie for the first time. I'd like to say it wasn't an instantaneous hatred, but I'd be lying: she took one look at me rolling my suitcase into the driveway for the first time in seven months--first time ever, as far as she was concerned--and proceeded to bark within an inch of her life. I looked down at her kindly, thinking perhaps she was just protecting the homestead; and in retrospect, she probably was. But then the mailman arrived the next day, two or three other vehicles pulled in and out of our driveway, all depositing human beings who intruded upon her so-called 'territory'... and she did nothing but cough up a few measly barks as they entered and exited. The average visitor would never know her venomous snarl, nor the fury she is capable of when you meet in a dark room in the middle of the night. No. She saved it all for me.
When it first occurred to me that my parents had adopted a creature with a vendetta against my individual existence, I was saddened. I took it personally; I watched my two-year-old niece throw a chew toy without having her hand bitten off, laughing and playing, and felt like the only kid not picked for kickball. I obeyed when my mother told me to accompany them on walks, to assert my presence in front of Maggie in a way that was non-threatening; I jogged with her around the reservoir, watched as she galloped over bushes and around rocks, and felt a glimmer of hope. But then we'd arrive back home, I'd enter the living room, Maggie would growl, and we'd start all over. Once, I looked over at her and my mom curled up on the couch, and saw the hairs bristle on Maggie's spine. I tried walking closer, and she snarled. My mom threw her on the patio. "It's not right," I told her. "I was here first!" My mom gave a little sniffle at her baby, now quarantined outside in the perfectly tolerable 70 degree Santa Barbara evening. "Yeah," she said. "But to be fair, that is her couch."
I tried a different approach. I'm used to Bali dogs, after all... mangy little assholes that alternate between darting in front of motorbikes, eating trash, and barking furiously at anyone who gets too close to their property. They're more frightening than policemen, and probably do more to deter crime as well. So by the third week of Maggie's dictatorship, I had stopped feeling sad, and started to get angry: she'd stare up at me with glassy, judgmental eyes, and I'd glare right back. She'd snarl at me, and I'd flash her my opposable thumbs, indicating my biological superiority. Maggie may be cuter, but I am smarter. I am the firstborn. It's on, bitch.
It's difficult to pinpoint why it bothered me so much, or why I should care whether my parents' dog loves me as much as she loves them. I'm here for one more week, and after that, who knows; and if I'm only returning for birthdays and holidays, living out of a toiletry bag, who cares whether I'm subjected to the occasional growl or raised haunches? The only thing I can say is that Maggie's entrance into my life served as a loud, exaggerated reminder of what was already flashing across my brain: you are not welcome here. It's not my family, but the city itself--Santa Barbara, my hometown, the place where I feel at once utterly comfortable and dangerously apathetic. Being here, especially after being away, is like having a pimple on your cheek that keeps cropping up into your peripheral vision: other people don't even notice it, but for you, it is there every time you lower your gaze. I can't quite explain it, but the culture shock after living in Bali for seven months was more than just re-acclimation... I felt positively allergic to things I never even saw before. To make matters worse, about 3 weeks after arriving, I was rushed to the hospital for a severe reaction to bee pollen. One second I was drinking a smoothie, and the next, my face had swelled up to the size of a balloon; I turned an impressive shade of cranberry, broke out in nasty, itchy hives, and spent the next three hours in the ER having a drug cocktail pumped into my arm. Physically, recovery was a breeze: I got off with little more than heightened awareness and an EpiPen to show for the incident. Emotionally, however, I felt damaged. I went home and collapsed into the couch, Maggie's couch, and wondered if it's possible to feel safe in a place that no longer holds you.
Not willing to give up on the dog front, Mom pressed for an intervention. She and my stepdad are leaving for Europe at the end of the summer, and they want me to housesit: an endeavor made slightly more difficult if I'm unable to come and go without a "body blocker." Enter Wency, the Dog Whisperer: "body blocking" is just one of many new terms that she taught us last Saturday, pulling into the driveway amid a cacophony of barks. I watched her approach Maggie, half-expecting the dog to greet her with a lick and a smile; leading the jury to the inevitable conclusion that the problem, in fact, is me, has always been me, and that Maggie is simply doing what no one else in my family is brave enough to do. I sucked down my carrot juice in self-pity and waited. But Wency walked right up to Maggie, backing her into the orange trees--and to my surprise, was met with a throaty growl. Suddenly, I had an ally.
"See that paw?" Wency asked me. "That raised front foot means, don't hurt me. Your dog isn't antisocial, and she isn't shy. She's terrified." This shocked me. Of what? "These old habits are hard to break," she continued. "You have to rewire her. Right now, she thinks everything is a threat, and you're reinforcing that bad behavior by allowing her to get away with it.
"And you," she looked toward my mother, "You gotta take care of your baby bear." I glanced at my mom and giggled. I get the whole dog/human connection, but a bear? Come on. "No," Wency said. Then she gestured toward me. "This is your child. You're the mama bear. And you have to start sticking up for your cub."
That was when she gave us the airhorn. She walked around the driveway with the leash pulled taut, and handed my mother a small, red can. "When Jenna approaches Little Sister and Little Sister growls, you blast this air at the ground." I approached, Maggie bared her teeth, and we waited. My mom, visibly uncomfortable, did as she was told... and we all jumped a few inches when the can let off a ginormous PSSSSSST! at Maggie's feet. All, that is, except Wency. "Good. Now, we work on positive reinforcement. Every time Daughter enters the room, I want some serious treats--I'm talking filet mignon, chicken, fish--to rain from the sky. If Maggie sits for the treats, excellent. If she doesn't, no treats. And no baby talk." She zeroed in on my mom again, who at this point, looked like she'd just been told she would have to spend the rest of her life in a coat made of tarantulas. Wency just smiled and pulled a glob of liver snacks out of her pocket. "When you enter the room, Jenna, come with a treat. From this point on, Little Sister is going to associate your presence with something good. And don't expect the progress to be totally linear, either." She yanked back on the leash as Maggie began to plead sanctuary behind my mother's knees. "It will be one step forward, one step back. Just stick with it."
"It's a process of rewiring. Undoing bad habits so new ones can take their place. It's not an easy task... but it is a possible one."
Other than the obvious creep-factor of calling Maggie my little sister, Wency had some interesting things to say. Did you know, for example, that it is submissive to stroke a dog beneath her chin, because it is typically done to the alpha in a pack? Or that dog owners should always walk through a doorway before their pet in order to assert dominance? I imagined what it must be like to live at Wency's house, where dogs of all shapes and sizes crawl over her body and in and out of her aggressively-planted legs, smelling the day's worth of misbehaving canines and wondering if Wency had given a piece of her heart to any of these new, foreign creatures. I imagine it must be rough on the self-esteem, being the pet of a professional Dog Whisperer; kind of like being Halle Berry's husband, or the girlfriend of one of those really slutty rappers. But Wency seemed like the loyal type, and well-versed on the subject of establishing boundaries. She told my mom that she needed to be more discerning about who touches Maggie on the head, as it could easily interfere with the training. "I don't get why people feel the need to walk up and pet other people's dogs, and why their owners are okay with it. It's like, you wouldn't just walk up and rub someone's kid... so why do it to their dog?" My brain flashed to an image of children gathering around a watering hole, sniffing each other's butts and barking as their parents check them for fleas and ticks. I decided this didn't bode well for my upcoming nannying job, and decided to push it from my head. Humans and dogs are different, after all. Aren't we? I looked down again at my opposable thumbs. Out of the corner of my eye, Maggie lay curled up under the table. The whites of her eyes were shiny with apprehension, and I couldn't help but feel sympathy. We've both been hurt. It's not up to her to explain where or how she developed the fears that keep her from approaching my hand without worry. It's not her fault that she can't tell what may or may not be contained in my palm.
As the week went on, Maggie and I tried our new "treat therapy" with mixed success. For a few days, she willingly obeyed when I commanded her to SIT for a handful of chicken sausage; she liked it even better when she was given treats just for letting me walk through the room. Around Thursday, she grew bored with the prospect of peace and began snarling at me from underneath the table. She gets the airhorn when she does this, which sends my mom into a tailspin of whatifshedoesn'tlovemeanymore... but as Wency pointed out, dogs don't hold grudges, and neither should we. If she's punished, Maggie gets up the next morning and slobbers just as excitedly as she did before she was thrown outside. Her fear issues may linger, but they don't make her any less willing to love.
Something to think about.
~
Thought #1: There's a science to the muscle memory of being hurt. We muscle ourselves into the position, and so we must muscle ourselves out. I sat in the car the other day, listening to an old love play a broken record; and as much as I wanted to help, wanted to be able to speak up in a voice that sounded like my own, my body felt glued to the spot. My mind fell into a groove worn slick from years of overuse. I sat with my gaze fixed forward, listening to the radio as it spat out the soundtrack to a clash of egos, and thought of how many instances in my life I have (re)acted out of fear.
Thought #2: There are two types of change, qualitative and quantitative. In the former, some have gone further than others: perhaps they don't feel the need to sit in cars and reenact scenes from nightmares past. In the latter, however--in the quantitative, the sum, the distance run--we are the same. Some of us have stickers to show for it, and some of us behave the same old way when an unfamiliar hand reaches toward our face: we bolt. It doesn't matter if it has treats in it.
But whether or not we run away, we've still changed. The same amount of days have passed between two people since the last time they met; and in that regard, we're all equal.
So. Sometimes, usually in a fit of caffeine, I believe that I'll move past the history that holds me down. I'm slowly, slowly creeping out from underneath the table where I feel invisible. It would be nice if treats rained down from the sky every time I made progress, rewarding me for sitting in the same space with a new mind; chocolate, ice cream, something to keep my mouth occupied while my brain catches up to the place where my heart is. 'Til then, however, I have a lap full of venison snacks, Maggie's favorite, and I'm about to go walk through the kitchen. We have an infinite capacity for change. I will throw them at her feet, and hope that one day she associates me with something good.
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