When puppies play
I spent the afternoon puppy sitting our two agents of chaos. They love getting love and being held. Almost as much as attacking each other with extreme gusto. Most of each day the one will ask in some doggie lingo to be held. He enjoys the closeness. The touching. Maybe the warmth and intimacy of the human touch. The hand should never be a fear thing but I think hitting a dog with the hand sooner or later gets there. There is being firm and starting to teach some “no things”. Boundaries of actions. It will take time. But use a hand to inflict pain and the thing a dog associates with love becomes fear.
So I watch these two go at it. They will attack each other throughout the day. Each one wins and loses millions of times. But there is never a truce. Watching them I think if one were gone the other would become miserable. There would be no opposite. No other dog with the short tail to go after. The one teases the other. Both have no rules. The game is on. Sam and George know that when it ends once it’s just a few steps from the next battle.
Watching them and I’m glad we have two. I would not want one puppy doing all that to me. Growling and barking and standing their ground. Being brave and hiding under the couch.
Then I feed them. Here they get rice and some soup gravy today. Maybe I know a full tummy makes them sleepy. The lights are off in the living room. A fan sings its soft noise song. The world quiets down.
No hum of motos or the slight discordance of talk here. The talk that seems sometimes to go on. And on. An interminable existence brought into sentences and laughs and exclamations. How can Khmer people have so much in words?
The puppies thankfully don’t talk besides puppy Khmer. So my task is to teach English to them for basic behavior things. What yes and particularly no means. Of course in khmer it’s “ah tay”. Perhaps they know that one. I doubt it. I don’t think no in any language is a thing.
Now I’ll take the full belly times. When one comes over to stare soulfully into my eyes. Some transmission. Some unsaid but meant thing passes. And i think they know. And I know. And I love every minute of it. Words unsaid but meant. Much better than words said but not meant.
A friend in California decades ago would stop by for beer. We would sit and talk. He did not show up for some days once. It stretched to weeks. I got worried. Finally he came over and told me he and his wife were divorcing. He was a gentle spirit. A hobo of life I think. He told me finally with some degree of mirth.
I should have married the dog. They don’t cheat.
That’s a life folks. And it all comes around to me. One dog and a memory. Two puppies now. It all comes back. It’s people that cheat. Dogs don’t know those things. 
☕️ 3 min read