In a short story titled \u201cDogs\u201d Ring\nLardner wrote, \u201cA man can’t be all bad when he is so kind to\ndogs…well friends when you come right down to cases they’s (sic)\nabout as much sence (sic) to this as a good many delusions we got\nhere in this country…\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meditate on Lardner’s statement. It’s\ntrue. A man can treat dogs with kindness and still be an angry,\nhate-filled asshole or a genocidal dictator. I do believe there is a\nsliver of hope to reconstitute angry or hateful human beings into\ndecent human beings if they love their dogs. Something good lurks\nthere. Imagine the angry man’s dog as an unwittingly disguised or\ncamouflaged entrance to a deep, dark, limestone cave where his heart\nresides. A person can enter that dog cave as a spelunker, and explore\nfor the presence of a heart. If the spelunker discovers the heart, no\nmatter how hardened or sclerotic, perhaps the discovery begins\nmedicine. Why not start the healing with the love of a dog? In recent\nyears, I’ve spelunkered into many a person’s angry or indifferent\nheart via their dog. I’ve met with both success and failure in these\nattempts, but I never stop trying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Time for a\npainful admission: I used Sonny the husky’s invalid condition as an\nexcuse for not acting as a better human being or even a mediocre one.\nWhat that means is that I told people I had to care for her and could\nnot get away from home. What that means is that I did not spare the\ntime to care for friends suffering from cancer, divorce, dislocation\naddiction and mental illness. I am deeply ashamed of this. I often\nwrote about Sonny and held myself up as a pedestal of virtue in my\nsteadfast caring for her. I did care for her with all my heart, but I\nshut my heart off to others who needed me. Please forgive me. I have\nasked. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don’t want to\nbecome an anti-human dog person as I get older. I’ve seen evidence of\nthat in many elderly people, particularly those volunteering at\nanimal shelters. Humans have dealt these people truly terrible,\nbrutal hands. They themselves might have dealt other humans equally\nterrible, brutal hands. Dogs are the only creature they can now care\nabout. Don’t let a dog become that to you. You can care for both. \n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In a short story titled \u201cDogs\u201d Ring Lardner wrote, \u201cA man can’t be all bad when he is so kind to dogs…well friends when you come right down to cases they’s (sic) about as much sence (sic) to this as a good many delusions we got here in this country…\u201d Meditate on Lardner’s statement. It’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5734,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[203,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bonnie-and-clyde-files","category-meditations","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5733"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5736,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5733\/revisions\/5736"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}