Location: the couch.

My dog has issues.

Lets see… there is thunderstorms, and possums and umbrellas and people wearing hats. And people of colour, and people on disability scooters, and lycra, and anything in the laundry basket and having his claws clipped.

There are no doubt more. Every day is a discovery.

I suspect that somewhere in his family tree there was a little genetic subterfuge with a Tasmanian devil, or perhaps an Ork….and on a pin, he can turn into a fluffy whirl of berserk.

I don’t judge him by his furry cover. I try not to judge what lay beneath. Yes he has issues, but he also has that thing that is the opposite of issues. Moreover, when he sits atop the couch staring at me with marble eyes and a slow wag, all is overcompensated for.

Such is life.

“Dogs, lives are short, too short, but you know that going in. You know the pain is coming, you’re going to lose a dog, and there’s going to be great anguish, so you live fully in the moment with her, never fail to share her joy or delight in her innocence, because you can’t support the illusion that a dog can be your lifelong companion. There’s such beauty in the hard honesty of that, in accepting and giving love while always aware that it comes with an unbearable price. Maybe loving dogs is a way we do penance for all the other illusions we allow ourselves and the mistakes we make because of those illusions.”

― Dean Koontz, The Darkest Evening of the Year