Why My Dog Follows Me Everywhere
A while ago I had a dog. I didn’t want to walk my dog. It was something I was ashamed of and only those who know me on a personal level will be aware of its existence. I think that most people have a dog at some point during their life, however, my dog is not something I tend to discuss very openly and I choose to get to know people better before I introduce it to them, as my dog can be a strenuous and tricky thing to deal with.
When I first got my dog it was very mellow, something I noticed lingering around, a sort of silent existence that would accompany me wherever I went. One day my dog bit me which in turn made me very watchful of it, I was wary of it’s behaviour and anxious about it’s presence though it resumed it’s role of shadowing me quietly, a kind of accomplice, or a friend, but one that I was now aware actually had teeth. I tried to push it to the back of my mind. I tried to shut it out. I tried not to think about my dog but it often nibbled at my ankles and would resist even when I would try to get it to simply sit. Over time my dog only began to misbehave more, jumping on my chest and clawing at my face and snarling down my throat. For a long time I couldn’t breathe. My dog was not a good dog and I continually struggled to control it. It was there with me like a shadow, always there even on the brighter days. It was something I tried, but failed, to escape and I was constantly being bitten by my dog. I didn’t know what to do and I would ask myself; why does my dog follow me everywhere?
My dog had all my attention. It stopped me from getting out of bed, it stopped me from doing anything at all. I could not devote myself to things. My dog was all-consuming, my dog was my life. It was not a guard dog but it was always watching over me, and at times when I needed to be guarded it would only sit and observe. It would frequently stand in the way of me and something that I desired, never able to grasp the concept of a threat and instead would often snarl at the things I cared about instead of the things that tried to hurt me. It was neither a guide dog yet it seemingly always found a way to lead me down one dark path or another. My dog meant that even when I felt alone, I knew that I never truly was - my dog was always around to keep me company, making it’s way in the same way that the smoke of a cigarette gets into your clothes. Silently.
Anywhere I went I knew that my dog was never far behind and I desperately sought an escape through anything - art, music and even homework but my dog would only end up destroying these things and stop me from finding any solitude. It was looming over my head like an expanding balloon, ready to burst at any given moment. Sometimes it could prevent me from doing anything at all and a lot of the time I would just attempt to sleep it away although I found it could still chase me through my dreams. Most of the time my dog just wished to injure me, but sometimes I felt like my dog was putting my life to an end. Despite it’s persistence I always tried to power through and one of the things I learned was that I was able to live on even when my dog seemed to be trying to forbid me from doing so.
I have found that pretending that my dog wasn’t there only made things boil over like hot water in a pot. Working with it rather than against it has resulted in my dog transforming from a severe and sad darkness to a serene, calm presence. Lately my dog is very docile and it has not assailed so ferociously in a very long time. I now understand what riles my dog up and what soothes it, and I have gotten quicker at patching myself up when it occasionally bites me. Sometimes I even take my dog out to play with other dogs and it’s nice to be around those who know what it is like to own such challenging dogs. When I’m with other people who have a dog, my dog takes a break and doesn’t even bark. It doesn’t get along with all dogs however, as sometimes other dogs can just upset it. Sometimes people who don’t even own a dog can agitate mine and therefore through experience I’ve learned to recognise who is and is not good for my dog. My dog now always sits when I tell it to. It listens to me and these days it is in a deep slumber. It brings me great satisfaction knowing that my dog has learned to behave better but even when it is placid my dog sometimes likes to remind me that it still remains. It will bark loudly in the middle of the night to wake me up. It will nudge me closer to the edge of the train platform or towards the road. Once in a while it still growls at me to the beat of a sad song or glares back at me through an old photograph. It still occasionally eats my homework.
I think my dog is something that will always be around even if it is very far in the back of my mind. I think I will always be looking over my shoulder for my dog just to be sure that it is not striving to creep up on me and I know that I will always be cautious of it. Something I have come to realise as I have gotten older is that there are so many other dogs around that I never noticed before. Maybe I was unable to see them for my own dog occupying so much of my mind and for it sitting on my chest but now that it has learned to sit elsewhere I realise that a lot of people have dogs just like mine. Some people have big dogs and some people have small dogs. Some people’s dogs are quite tranquil whilst other people’s dogs are rather frightful. Some people have old dogs and some people have new dogs. Like me, many people have dogs that aren’t really around anymore but pop up from time to time. There are dogs everywhere. They surround us. Recently, I am not as scared when my dog gets angry because I know that it will ultimately settle down again and I am no longer embarrassed to walk my dog because when I look around, I see that everyone else is walking their own dogs, as well. consequence, Stephen Blaine handed down to posterity his height of just under six feet and his tendency to waver at crucial moments, these two abstractions appearing in his son Amory. For many years he hovered in the background of his family’s life, an unassertive figure with a face half-obliterated by lifeless, silky hair, continually occupied in “taking care” of his wife, continually harassed by the idea that he didn’t and couldn’t understand her.
