women who sleeps with wolf

I look at my husky Boots and see a polar bear when he walks. A wolf when he howls and a coyote when he yawns. A hare’s behind when he tramples down the stairs to be let out. A dead deer when he lays with his legs stiff on the hardwood floor.  A washed up walrus sun bathing on the rocks when he droops off the bed, neck stretched.  A cat when he curls up in a ball, his nose tucked under his tail.  A sea turtle coming up for air when his front legs are stretched out wide and his head rests in the middle.  And the way he stares is human. Is kin.  He sits upright, looks longingly out the window like an artist lost in wonder. One of our favorite activities together is simply too gaze into each other’s eyes.  For whole minutes. His turquoise blue, my brown. His body up and down with every pant. Mine a subtle sink and rise. 

Having an animal present everyday is more than a best friend. It’s a reminder of the wild. Of non-verbal discourse. No politics. Just walks. No arguments. Just intentional sounds. 

What a gift our prefrontal cortex. What a curse. No dog ever made an atomic bomb. When to use our subcortical brain, when to use our prefrontal. How to exercise our cross-hemisphere coordination. How to quiet the chatter. 

People in my hood call him majestic, a mystical creature. Maybe because they two see he’s more than a dog.  A furry connection to that which is larger than our ego.  Like the sun setting over a vast horizon, capturing our attention because we didn’t make it. 

He, like many, hate being washed, though he thoroughly enjoys biting water.  Trying to pull him into a bath tub against his own volition is igniting a beast.  Adopted as a senior with a neglectful past, training is only sometimes hopeful. 

There is a science, I’m learning, in striking a balance between being wild and domestic. One of delicate understanding. One of knowing when to mother, when to rest and when to create. 

He has personality, preference, pulls me in a certain direction on the sidewalk. Smell is his instinct, entertainment and most enjoyable activity.  Sniffs the air, follows his nose, has a routine of scoping out the perimeter of the park every morning, checking every tree. Sensitive to sound, not unlike me, he runs home when cars blast music, fireworks boom or anything loud startles his survival. It took him months to bring me a toy, to accept a bear hug, to receive affection from strangers. Now when I return he rests his head on my shoulder, tail wagging. He goes up to people at the park, stares at them directly in the eyes and at times will lick their face. 

If I’m too loud he leaves the room. If I’m too affectionate when he’s trying to sleep he snarls. If he’s hungry and I’m typing he wags and talks through 4 consecutive barks with ears up.  If I’m getting ready to leave and he’s on the bed, his head remains calmly cocked with one eye in my direction waiting to see if he gets to come.  And recently when I return, if he followed my scent, there will be a pair of dirty underwear taken from the laundry bin half eaten and torn up on the floor.   Yes. It’s true. And a little perverted. But he knows when I’m on my period.  He knows when I’m emotionally vulnerable and instead of going to the couch, as he usually does, when I crawl into bed, he stays all night warming my feet with the weight of Christmas stockings.

Having been hit with a broom from his previous owner, if I attempt to groom him before he relaxes into it, he will snap at my hand, pacing back and forth, and even though I know his trauma background, I’ll want to bite back.  His guarding tendencies are severe and he will bite me if I try to get a ball of aluminum foil littered from a McDonalds whopper out of his mouth.  That asshole. How dare he, doesn’t he know I’m trying to help, doesn’t he know whose boss. Snapping at me when he gets raw rabbit. Sleeping on a throne in a Brownstone. Pshhh, ungrateful bastard.   

These are all ridiculous yet legitimate things I think as my muscles tense and I want to pop the bubble wrap.  You know, the feeling when you jump on plastic bubble wrap and it pops - that’s the feeling I crave like an addict when my dog (or a human for that matter) acts out.  I want snap, I want impact.  But it’s never enough, because that pop only makes me want more.  If I slap my dog’s back with a “bad” command, he bites back and snarls more.  Which makes me want to hit more. And thus the cycle continues.  We both loose. Expect as a dog he forgets 2 seconds later and I’m reeling for 2 hours thinking how dare he. Doesn’t he know how much I pay for organic kibble.

When I see this cycle outside my own relationships it feels exacerbated. Today, I witnessed a tense interaction between teacher and student. A tired teacher lost patience and yelled, a frustrated student banged her artwork against the table. A teacher grabbed it from her hands. A student sunk in shame. Both lost the tug of war. 

Aggression + aggression = agghh.   

This may seem obvious but as someone who is inadvertently aggressive, it is a difficult lived lesson. Boots, a domestic yet wild animal, is teaching me aggression doesn’t solve aggression. There’s no point in taking someone else’s defense personal (be it my dog’s snap or a student’s compensation for insecurity or a lovers retreat at the end of a day).  We’re both trying to survive with the tools we have in that moment. We both need each other. I have to respect their limits in order to have mine, in order to create a safe enough space to meet somewhere in the shifting middle. 

Boots encourages I relate to him both ethically and authentically.  And don’t we all.  As the wild and domestic animals that we are. 

Photo: Fort Tilden Beach with Boots

ALISON SCHUETTINGER

MARCH 29, 2022