Grrrr.

            I travel in a crate in the back seat of Carll’s car. I dislike the crate, but loathe being abandoned, so suck it up. An only dog fears solitude something fierce – wouldn’t you, age four (in human years)? Carll jollies me as if accompanying him in stuffy confinement were the cat’s pajamas. Remember the sweat boxes for intransigent prisoners in The Bridge over the River Kwai (great movie!)? Imagine if those gruesome captors chortled, “In you scoot, you lucky dog.”

            Slaves don’t get a vote. Where, one might ask, is our Emancipation Proclamation? We’re expected to grin “Yes, Massah” and oscillate our stubby tails like metronomes presto giocoso. I’m not saying my life is hard – I’m luckier in my subjection than many – I might even admit to being happy, were such a sentiment admissible – Carll and Jane are mostly sweeties – but who can be happy bereft of his rights? Then again, I don’t believe in happiness, a concept which sickens humans. Ask humans if they’re happy and a no answer – or not really – ignites distress. Dogs refrain from such masochism.

            This particular day, not long ago, Carll had opened his back door and was bending to lift me into the crate. He was in a hurry, which is always an impact opportunity. If you want to stage a protest, fellow yardbirds, do it when your turnkey’s pressed for time. If they shrug, “OK, have it your way,” your defiance loses its fizz.

            Naturally, I embraced this opportunity to evade his grasp, galloping off, obliging Carll to give chase. Gallop, I grant, is a verb more associated with my equine confederates, but it suits my hopping, bobbing celerity so why not?

            “Henry, come!” Carll barked, with his no-kidding-around baritone. Why he endears in the treble and chides in the bass cleft I’ve no notion, but it’s unmistakable. Could be some vestigial association of sweetness with the feminine – for another day.

            I had no intention of heeding, summoned so presumptuously, as if owned. I suppose we’re all owned in a way – by parents, teachers, coaches, employers, spousal and parental duties if we get that far – owned by our obligation to fit in. Isn’t that what obligation means, etymologically, to be bound, as in “ligature” or “religion”?

            Who of us is our own person – or pup? Maybe a hermit in a cave – but even he is ruled and overruled by nature and disease. Free at its freest means free to do as one is bid. I know this. (A cockapoo may be almost as smart as his poodle pa.)

            And yet (my point this outing) we must envision independence to believe we matter. “Matter,” I admit, is another of those fuzzy human concepts, but dogs feel it too. Respect me, embrace me, don’t treat me like baggage or a chore! I’ll accept incarceration in that scarcely lit suitcase – better that than loneliness – but let me imagine this is choice not surrender. And if you disrespect me – by ordering me around – like a thug prison guard – I’ll react with resistance, scorn, taunting, to remind you who’s who, not because I hate but because I love. So chase me round and round the parked car, cher maître, muttering and glancing at your watch, while I laugh and prance, my little pink tongue wagging irresistibly, as only I can wag it.

            And then, when you’re fit to be tied (the eighteenth-century phrase recalls straight-jackets for lunatics), I’ll hop into my open crate door – on my own, thank you very much. And you didn’t know I could hop so high, did you, Master Carll? Neither did I.