Life on the Leash

Taking a page from the Mommybloggers, it’s a birthday letter to Sumner …

You’re nine today, Sumner.

You’re getting old, my friend, but not mellow. And I don’t mean that in a good way.

I call you “my project” when I’m mentioning you to my clients, which is polite dog trainer code for “my embarrassment.” It’s been eight years since we brought you home, and though you’ve improved exponentially, you still humble me nearly every time we walk out the front door. I’ve learned so much about reactive dogs from you, and I feel great empathy for my clients who live with dogs like you (“I’ve been there,” I tell them, “I know exactly how you feel.”) but there are times when I just wish you were … normal.

I wish that I could stop and chat with a neighbor when we’re out walking instead of having to worry about keeping a safe buffer between you and all other life forms. I wish that you could hear a car door slam without looking back at me, wild-eyed, hoping for reassurance that the person emerging from the car isn’t coming to kill you. I wish that you could pass another dog without keening. I wish that we could just stroll the streets without having to worry about who or what is coming around the next corner.

The fact that you’re stunning compounds the problem. People want to admire you. Just last week a man stopped his moped in the middle of the street, turned to us and said, “You have a gorgeous dog!” It makes me sad because I want people to be able to meet the sweet, silly, affable dog that you truly are, instead of the frightened, ever-on-alert lost soul that you are out in the real world. You have a gigantic heart. The people you love, you love completely. There are only four of us; me, Tom, my Mom and my Dad.

Tom and I often wish that you could have been with us from puppyhood. Would that have changed things? Would a healthy dose of socialization and training from eight weeks on have made you confident? Or is your nervous, socially handicapped nature a genetic mishap that no amount of care could “fix”?

Sumner, you frustrate me, you embarrass me, and you make me question my skills as a dog trainer.

But I adore you.

Here’s to more Barkdays, and the eventual mellowing that time will bring that no amount of training can.