Well... I’ve got a bit of that going on. I firmly believe that there is a part of me which is Canine through and through.
Yes, I am convinced that I am part-dog.
Sure, it would be cooler to be Lupine and howl at the moon but, as the man says, you can’t always get what you want.
Why do I think I’m part dog?
Well the evidence is there in my behavior, particularly in the way I deal with other dogs.
It’s mostly territorial. Whenever I see a dog who barks at me, it effects me at a very basic primordial level. That dog is clearly trying to assert some kind of authority on me and I CANNOT HAVE THAT (sorry). I see any dog barking at me as a personal invasion and affront and the desire to go to that dog and take my bloody vengeance is often difficult to suppress.
I have never come across a dog who scared or intimidated me. Dogs sense this in me too – generally they are afraid of me no matter how nice I am trying to be – they sense that thing in me which humans cannot – namely that if they get in my space and annoy me, I could gleefully tear them limb from limb.
As a result people often tell me that I am ‘good with dogs’. I like dogs, so that helps, but mostly the dogs know not to get out line with me. They smell a kindred spirit. One who responds to them as another dog would – an Alpha Dog.
Why am I musing on this today? Well yesterday, someone ‘got in my space’ down town. They were drunk and they ran full tilt into me as I was coming out of the video shop. I said something like ‘Please be careful’ and he said ‘F**k off, don’t touch me.’ At those words, the territorial instinct set in and, in that moment I was no longer a tired dude heading home from work.
I hissed something into this guys face that I won’t repeat here – suffice it to say it was graphic and completely confrontational.
The guy looked into my eyes and he saw the dog in there. Maybe in his drunken calculation he saw somebody who he could win over in a fight but he also saw somebody who would bloody him badly before he finally succeeded.
So he lowered his eyes and he went away.
And as I walked up the street, the dog was gone again and I was left reprimanding myself for rising to these situations.
I was an old fool, I thought, and it was time I calmed down.
But one part of me – a small part – just wanted to find a pole and piss on it.
