Photo by John of http://www.johndoesamsterdam.com
In our walk around Vondelpark yesterday, I picked up a stick and threw it for Mylo. I don’t know why I bothered, he never plays along with me, and it’s usually me throwing a stick around a park and going to pick it up again myself.
But this time he did! He ran after the stick, actually picked it up, and brought it back. You know, like a dog!
With all the whooping and hollering I was doing (“GOOD BOY! YOU’RE A GOOOOD BOOOOOY!”), you would have thought he was bringing me back the Nobel Peace Prize that he had just won for physics.
But no, it was only a stick.
I made to throw it again, and he yipped and yipped as if he wanted that: ”Yes! Throw it again! I will get it again! YOUR MIND WILL BE BOGGLED AGAIN!”
And so I threw it again, and he chased after it again.
When he got to it, he sniffed it, and then lifted his leg and pissed on it, thus effectively ending our little game of fetch.
***
This week started in something of a rut. I’ve been bluer than blue, and this blog is not the place to get into the finer details of why. But to sum it up, I was blue about everything. EVERYTHING.
Yeah, sort that out if you can.
Every day I spent every spare moment in bed, alternating between sleeping and quietly crying.
Mylo stayed by me constantly, he never once left my side, whether I was sleeping or sobbing or watching episodes of Cougartown to get my mind off of things. See, he’s even here now as I write this.
Here now, here always.
In fact he was the only element of my life that I wasn’t crying over, the only thing that made me happy, and the only thing that made me laugh this week so far.
I’ve written before how accurate he is when he senses that I need him, and this week really proves that for me. But he seems to need me as much as I need him. This worries me, because as I have written before, he no longer has his pack. I am his pack, and I’m not so sure I’m up to the job. How do I know what a dog really needs? He is always watching me and waiting for me to do something, but what exactly? I’m not sure.
The best I can do is give him back all of the attention that I am getting, and in the only way I know how. So there are walks in the park, failed attempts at playing fetch, whole TV series that we watch together, and in just a little while I’m taking him on my Bagels & Coffee date.
We’ll figure it out. Somehow we will find the balance between people needs and dog needs, and meet somewhere in the middle.
And then both of us will be happy again.
[...] night rolled around, and it was the night that I had booked a table at Marit’s. Even my 4-day Wallowing in Infinite Sadness wasn’t enough to stop me from getting out of bed, throwing on some gladrags, and heading on [...]