Calling My Own Bluff

I do not suffer fools.

This personal propensity was revealed to me several years ago when a boss of mine informed me that the reason she liked my management style was because I did not suffer fools.

Even then, before I actually knew what it meant to suffer a fool, I was innately and staunchly adhering to this social positioning. In fact, when I first heard the expression from my boss, I found it so appealing that I made a mental commitment to find out what it meant and, as luck would have it, my own personal philosophy did seem in accordance with the statement.

I am aware, by the way, that by admitting that I believe myself to be someone who has the right to decide who is a fool and who is not, I have unveiled myself as a fool of the most grandiose proportions.

In any case, I have two dogs: Freya and Bruce. When we adopted Freya, about six years ago, two elements of her character quickly became clear: number one, she was more human than dog, and number two, she possessed a similar stance as my own with regards to fools. Proof of her inclination lay in the fact that it was immediately apparent that she detested teenagers. Show me the teenager who is not a fool and I will admit that I have been proven wrong. I know teenagers, I was a teenager, and trust me, they are all idiots.

And I am speaking from a place of compassion—you have to go through a phase of utter insecurity and foolishness if you are ever going to be a person of substance. Really, I commend their struggle.

Freya, however, as a canine, tends to live in the moment. She doubtfully considers the future of these rambunctious folks and merely focuses on the present. From the start, she seemed to be able to sniff out instability and unpredictability and to disdain it. As such, she has always avoided teenagers like the plague.

Freya is, incidentally, both an intellectual and a behavioral snob. I hope you can fully appreciate how rare these qualities are amongst the exotic mixed breeds of the canine world, otherwise known as “mutts”. She does not pick up refuse from the street, she abhors raucous behavior, she will not cavort with strangers (dogs or human), she has never plunged headlong into any body of water, she crosses her paws daintily when seated, and she enjoys jazz music and classic films.

Her strangest quality, as far as I can discern, is that she is a dog and not, in fact, a debutante from the 1950’s.

I take great pride in Freya’s undog-like behavior. She is calm, classy, graceful, thoughtful, and funny. In case you are failing to read between the lines, I have ascribed to Freya all of the qualities I strive to embody. It is a lot to live up to.

So enamored have my husband and I been with Freya, that last year we felt inspired to adopt a second dog. Enter Bruce.

Bruce is incredibly handsome. He is fifteen pounds of terrier mix with short rust colored coat, floppy ears, big brown eyes and a white stripe down his forehead that my husband is convinced makes him faster. We brought him home from the shelter and, much to our delight he was house-trained, cuddly, and willing and able to sleep (remarkably soundly) for 12 hours every night.

Bruce also entered our house with some other little “quirks." For one thing, he would incessantly chew on furniture. Here I want to make it known that the bitter apple spray, by which my mother swears (Paco evidently hates it) was no deterrent--even though it smells like rubbing alcohol. I am inclined, therefore, to add “alcoholic” to Bruce's list of qualities. Additionally, he barked maniacally for approximately six hours of the day, and generally demonstrated paranoid and schizophrenic behavior.

For example, on walks, he would become highly suspicious about random bushes or piles of leaves. He would lurch around these vicinities, seemingly sure that something or someone was about to pop out and pounce on him. He would then go inexplicably plunging into the exact bush about which he demonstrated such fear.

To some dogs he would have no reaction, to others it seemed he wanted to dismember them in sight. The strangest thing would be when we would see the same dog and he would have polar opposite reactions based on...well, based on what, I cannot say.

It bears noting that generally, upon seeing other dogs, he would run wildly at them, only to stop six inches in front of them and bark incessantly. An odd aspect to this “greeting” ritual (in addition to the oddness of the ritual on the whole) is that he seemed to want friends. That is, his tail would wag all the while he barked at an alarmingly high decibel. He would then cry when the other dogs ran away from him (often after having become so scared and/or alarmed that they peed on the spot).

Bruce manages to become unfathomably dirty in very short periods of time, and he will plunge into any and every body of water he comes across—regardless of factors such as temperature or general safety. Of the many, many items he unscrupulously picks up from the streets on our walks, among his favorite delicacies are dead toads and horse manure.

He throws himself with vigor at Freya at what (I would imagine) she perceives to be inconvenient and/or inappropriate times, and he shreds toys, shoes, and furniture with no apparent rhyme or reason. Somehow, all of this is tolerable. However, what I find most troubling is that he seems to love, of all God-forsaken things, teenagers.

I suppose I should not be altogether shocked by that realization. After all, when Bruce first came home with us he basically embodied a teenage boy in dog form; he was generally house-trained, seemed to be experimenting with alcohol, had social skills which outwardly indicated to the world that he wanted everyone to leave him alone, yet he also seemed to yearn for a sense of inclusion, and, finally, the whole “acting before thinking” phenomenon.

So you can imagine my chagrin. The girl who does not suffer fools has brought the canine equivalent of the human epitome of a fool voluntarily into her house. Was I self destructive? Or just, as I mentioned earlier, showing my true colors as the greatest fool of all time? Karma is, after all, a real stinker.

I know that I will never be able to specifically verbalize what made us decide to bring Bruce home, which is a question my husband voiced aloud for several months after we adopted him. Much like when we adopted Freya, some intangible force compelled us to select that particular dog at that particular moment in time despite a number of logical reasons which might have spoken against such a decision.

And when we adopted Freya, our life was truly in need of stabilization. A calm, contained energy was just what our home needed to balance itself as we navigated the waters from being an engaged couple to being married, as we moved homes four times, as we made several job changes, and endured many family “situations.” We needed a Freya, a dog that was, and is, calm in the storm. We relied on her constant support, unwavering gentleness, and companionship.

I, especially, needed Freya as she was the physical embodiment of the person I wanted to be: more grounded, more decisive, more graceful—content with who she was and what place she held in the world. Freya was truly an invaluable constant as we navigated through the waters of chaos to find our own rhythm and peace in this world.

Bruce, in stark contrast to Freya, is chaos embodied. Having some perspective now, I see that our decision to adopt him was indicative of our own need to shake things up in our life. My husband and I are at a stage where we both feel ready for new adventures; we want to grow as individuals and as a couple. Due to time, maturity, and a whole host of other factors, the qualities and components of an ideal life have changed for us, and I believe that we subconsciously craved a physical manifestation of our internal evolutions.

We both, as type-A’s who have been long devoted to routines and have lived carefully within the boundaries of our own making, recently realized that we wanted to stretch beyond our comfort zones and to try to incorporate a little more spontaneity…a little more, well living, into our life. We needed a Bruce as proof that we can plunge into unpredictable waters, get dirty, make awkward social decisions and still, at the end of the day, sleep like a baby.

Freya continues to be calm, graceful, and discerning. And Bruce is spunky, gregarious, and fearless. What I once feared to be his membership to the class of creatures I so disdained—the fool—has actually emerged as a genuine joie de vivre.

Now, as Freya sits by the door, paws gracefully crossed and head resting atop them in her ever dignified napping pose, and Bruce, in contrast, is splayed out in all his messy glory on the bed he spent the better part of the morning chewing up, I am reminded that life is about balance.

My dogs teach me every day in ways both subtle and obvious, on scales both large and small. I have found that what I intrinsically know to be true at any given period in my life is often manifested physically through my relationship with my dogs. Somehow my dogs are the link enabling what my subconscious believes to become a conscious reality.

Freya has helped me build a foundation of peace and inner calm, and Bruce is teaching me that life’s boundaries are far more flexible than I once perceived them to be. As I consider the magnitude of influence of my dogs on my life, and the ever expanding sense of gratitude I feel towards them, I am reminded that I once thought people who spoke of dogs as “teachers” or “friends” were unequivocally crazy.

And with that admission, I pose the inevitable question: who is the fool now?