Green Shoots: Dog is God backwards…or is it the other way round?

Dogs are always around people, and doesn’t the good book say we were made in God’s image. So its not too far a stretch when a joke asks you to imagine a time when God was chilling with their dog. Back then dogs could talk, and had pretty strong feelings about things. Being an opinionated animal, the dog quickly irritated God with criticism of creation, so God took away dog’s ability for speech, and to rub it in, made chocolate deadly for the creature. Or so the joke goes.

I’ve always had dogs. I grew up with them, and they had great names like Rusty, Pluto, and Ringo, and Tiger who was stolen as a puppy and left me heartbroken. When I settled down with a family there was Apollo, a staffie I fetched from my brother-in-law in Newcastle as security after a home invasion in Joburg. We got him a pal called Saffo, named after the Greek poet from the island of Lesbos whose work celebrated love and desire between women. And then we got Scratch, a labrador who travelled to Swaziland with us when we moved there for a while.

There we adopted Sandy who would catch lizards and crows, and later Milo, who wouldn’t even start the chase. Back in Joburg and having moved into a new house recently, I’ve had to hold Milo’s paw in exploring her new environment. She’s a gentle soul prone to irrational fear of anything noisy, including the refuse trucks and the abundant and strange new bird calls in the garden.

All these dogs had great character, and have proven to be wonderful companions to humans, tugging at our heartstrings and demanding love and affection. Apparently they have evolved to have facial expressions to make them more appealing to humans than their lupine cousins. And unlike cats who have their own inscrutable minds, dogs are shaped by how we treat them.

Knowing that my behaviour impacts theirs, I’ve learnt patience in relating to dogs. They are irrationally afraid of certain things, especially loud noises, so violence or aggression as a behaviour modification approach is pointless. If the fear that is so expressive in their eyes during a thunderstorm or fireworks display doesn’t challenge your heart to care, then you have a heart of stone.

Still, they remain loyal even when you’ve been short or angry or mean with them. Their ability to forgive is epic – you don’t even have to ask, or show repentance. They will seek you out and want to cuddle. We hear stories of dogs biting people. Without minimising the trauma of those victims, I am convinced that it is the conditions that us humans create that causes these incidents. It’s either we train the animals to behave in a more aggressive way than their natural character might, or they may be excitable as a breed and mistake human behaviour as threatening. For many of us having dogs is about increased security. I adopted Apollo the staffie for that reason, and he had the look that would make any potential intruder think twice about messing with me. He was also the gentlest playmate to my toddler son.

The dogs in my life have taught me all sorts of lessons about unconditional love. They have challenged me to have more compassion, more patience, more care in how I make my way in this world. Milo is still with me – she’s getting on in years. She’s a scaredy cat that would jump at her own shadow, but she’s also the most gentle soul you’ll find. We really ought to be more like dogs, afraid of noisy things like bombs and guns, and loyal and forgiving and caring in our relationships with others. I don’t think it is coincidence that dog is God spelt backwards.