Gates

When I adopted my dog, Charlie, he was about 2 and had a rough start of things. I don’t know exactly what happened and I've been told I don’t want to know, but it has left him an anxious dog. It took us about 3 months, but we bonded, hard. My Dad put it best when he said in Charlie’s world there is Sarah, then everyone else. 

Years after his adoption I moved into my second floor apartment. Charlie had a hard time adjusting.  Every time I made my way down the stairs to the door, halfway I would hear his paws pounding down the steps after me. His whimpers were only made more pathetic by his 60 lb frame leaning against me, with a whole body “Pleeeaase don’t leave!”

This was manageable when I was taking out the trash or going to do laundry. I could hear him the entire walk, carrying on & scratching frantically at the front door. But soon enough I came back in, Charlie would relax and dance his way around me as I walked up the stairs, while I tried not to trip over him and tumble to my death.

It's when I left for work the first time that I became aware of how bad his anxiety made him behave. Once I shut my car door I could hear him at the  bottom of the stairs. It started with the whimpers and scratching I had heard before, but quickly changed to paws pounding and full body barks. I sat there, listening for the noises to subside. They didn’t, they only became more panicked.  I walked back in and led Charlie into my bedroom. With a biscuit and a kiss I shut the door. A fix for the day, but I had to find another solution. I found the perfect thing I didn’t even know I was looking for, the way most of us do, at Target.

After grabbing my J&J Baby Detangler I saw them - baby gates. I bought 2 and installed one at the top of the landing and one in the doorway of the kitchen.  Charlie is part Lab and will eat whatever he can get into, including garbage. (Did you know that Labs will poop out whole whatever their body can’t digest? Because no one told me…) This along with a short stint of meds kept his separation anxiety at bay. 

Fast forward a year and a half, I come home after work, open the gate and give some snugs.  After doling out dinner, I open the fridge to get a cool drink. Except when I open the fridge there is a lack of cool. In fact there’s no cool, it’s room temperature. Damn it.

The nice thing about renting is I get to call someone else to deal with this.  I call maintenance, they come quickly and confirm, yes, my fridge has no chill. The two men tell me they’ll be back shortly with a new one.  I spend the next 20 or so minutes emptying the fridge, throwing out spoiled food and taking down the baby gates. The two men return, replace my refrigerator and I get on with shoving what little food survived back into the fridge, along with putting the baby gate to the kitchen back up.

After I turn the last nut, I gaze beyond the gate, into the kitchen to see the heaping bag of spoiled food I filled earlier. That’s gotta go. I postpone putting up the last gate and grab the bag. As I walk toward the stairs I see Charlie watching me make my exit from his spot on the couch. Outside, I heave the bag into the dumpster and proceed back in. I come in and make my way over to the far wall to grab the second gate. I pause and look over at Charlie. He’s on the same place on the couch. Head perked, tail wagging, but still in the same place.

Huh.

I look over at the clock and see it’s time for me to teach my evening yoga class. I gather my things and decide to conduct a little experiment.  I lean the gate on my bookshelf, give Charlie a biscuit and head out to class.

A while later I return, open the door and trot up the steps. I hope my quick gate will at least stop Charlie at the halfway point. But no puppy came. At the top I immediately take my gaze to where I left him. From the exact same spot on the couch, he and I make eye contact. He sits up and gives me a big open mouthed, puppy grin.  As I walk up I hear his wagging tail thump against the couch. I sit next to him, cup his sweet face and smooch his snout.

While I sit and stroke his soft fur I wonder how long it’s been like this. How long have I kept that gate up unnecessarily? It was an absolutely necessity when I put it up. I needed a behavior, which served neither him nor me, to be corrected. But when was it that he learned the lesson? When was the last time he rushed the gate or howled at the bottom of the steps? Honestly, I can’t tell you. I had absentmindedly continued to see him as he was. Like I was playing an old movie right over who he is today.

There’s a comfort in having an old movie playing. A familiarity with the story that lets you go about whatever you’re doing, without really paying attention to what’s going on around you. I wonder how many stories I have playing around me.  Old habits, points of view, doubts about myself, that I project over what's actually happening in front of me. 

Not being present makes me sad, but something else hits me harder.  I've held on to past notions that not only don't serve me, but have possibly hurt those around me. When someone doesn't recognize my growth, I'm pissed. I worked hard for that damn it! Yet, here I am doing the exact same thing. 

I came back out of my head and looked down at Charlie then over at the baby gate. I got up, grabbed the gate and walked it over to the closet.  With a bit of finegling I got to the back and dropped the gate. It gave a satisfying THUD as it hit the ground.  

I turn to find Charlie standing right behind me. I looked down and knew what I had to say to start making amends.  “I'm sorry, Buddy.”

Being that Charlie is a dog, he forgave me immediately.