Here's a story I don't understand.
Every morning I visit one place or another to walk my dog Beau, a poodle who is charming with people but unfailingly obnoxious with other dogs.
His favorite place (not mine), is a huge open field and swamp near the airport in the Twin Cities. I call it the Dogyard. It is a no-leash area, so the dogs scamper about, exploring one another's dimensions and aromas, and the people stand around and chat.
My dog adores being with other dogs, but his burden in life is that he must be continuously impressing them by chasing them until they stumble, or playing tag with them by nipping them on their backs. It is embarrassing. It seems like I am always apologizing to some perfectly nice person for Beau upending their perfectly nice dog. He doesn't bite, but he is rough, and intimidating.
I see him as a cruel policeman, pulling other dogs over, handing out citations, and every now and then beating the crap out of somebody. I am thinking of strapping a spinning red light to his pompadour.
I can train him to behave properly in a dozen situations. But get him in the society of other dogs, and he reverts to his pointless, self-defeating intuition.
About a year ago I noticed the arrival of another person, a very big man of about 35, with a Pug and a Rottweiler. Call him Steve. An interesting fellow, he claimed to be an Internet entrepreneur and an outstanding jazz harmonica player.
Beau enjoyed Steve's dogs, especially the plump Pug Mojo. Over time his enjoyment began to mutate into some strange attraction. He would prance about Mojo doing some undulating French poodle hula, tongue hanging out the side of his head. I'd apologize for his odd behavior, but let it go.
I noticed Steve was given to telling "poor, poor pitiful me" stories about his misunderstood self. Although he was a married man, he seemed to enjoy eliciting the pity of women with dogs, especially a law student we'll call Eve (owner of a Rottweiler and a Labrador).
One week, Eve didn't show up at the dog field, and Steve began reviling her, saying only he knew the real Eve. He said she was disturbed, obsessive compulsive, and had been stalking him. "Emotional flypaper" was an expression he used. And crooked: he accused her of trying to cheat him out of his $4 million dotcom startup.
That was when Beau chose to assault Mojo.
It was ugly. Beau began treating Mojo like a woodchuck. He flipped the little dog on its back and appeared to be biting his tummy. I must admit I froze uselessly.
Steve suddenly flipped into defensive mode -- astonishing for a 300-pound man - and actually leapt about three yards onto Beau, and began slugging the yelping dog!
Satisfied he had disciplined the poodle, Steve stood up, swept his hair from his face, and justified his intervention: "Enough is enough!"
I was humiliated, but I was also furious. One rule of conduct in the generally rule-less, laissez-faire world of dog walking, is that dogs can only be disciplined by their owners. Mojo was unbloodied but shaken.
"I should say so," I said, and clapped a leash onto Beau, swatting him with frustration ("Bad, bad, bad, bad dog!"), and race-walked him to our car.
In my shame, I avoided the Dogyard for over a month. But as my disgrace ebbed, I began coming back. I had to: if Beau didn't spend time with dogs, getting socialized, his odd predilections got worse.
When I returned, I met up with Eve, who told me a strange tale. Yes, she had had some sort of partnership with Steve. She was set to quit law school and assume part ownership of his dotcom company. But she found out he was obsessed with her, and she backed out of the deal. That was when he went on his rampage, badmouthing her to everyone.
And now, a month later, he was stalking her online, breaking into her email, and worse, into her online financial accounts. Every day, invited by the rest of us, she would tell how the investigation was going, as local police departments puzzled over the problem of proving what someone is doing anonymously on the Internet, across multiple jurisdictional lines.
I told Eve I would be very careful to not provoke Steve -- but that my judgment was that he was just a sad and backward fellow who got his jollies by sneaking around. If Beau's sin is thinking he has to domineer, Steve's is acquiring power by skulking and crybabying.
On the other hand, Beau is a dog and Steve is a person.
And that's where things stand. All the dogwalkers have turned against Steve. When Steve does saunter up to the Dogyard with his two dogs, everyone gathers up their dogs and goes home. My disgrace, when Beau went bonkers on Mojo, was a fleeting thing compared to his.
But this is what I don't understand. Steve, whom I do dislike, just wants to play like the rest of us, like our dogs. Isn't there some way to teach him how to behave?
