5. When Your Brilliance Works Against You

We have a pomsky named Dancer at home. Dancer is a wolf that’s been hit by a shrink ray. Most of the time, she’s an absolute angel, but when left alone, her slight 20 pound frame can become an absolute menace. It’s not her fault she’s got more energy than she knows what to do with. Sometimes her natural destructive instincts just take over when nobody is there to supervise. However, she knows she’s not supposed to destroy pillows, eat books and suck on drywall, so she really is very apologetic of her behaviour when we return home to the occasional mess. She cowers into her little bed and humbly asks our forgiveness for what she’s done. That’s the great thing about dogs. Not for a moment to they even think about trying to defend their misbehaviour. Dancer doesn’t give us all the reasons that she had to eat the pen that was left on the table, she just earnestly apologizes. Even if we should’ve known she needed a walk, forgot to feed her breakfast or riled her up before we left, she takes full blame for the mess on her tiny pipsqueak shoulders. We can’t explain to the poor little pup that it was really our fault. She doesn’t get it because she hasn’t been given the dignity of understanding like we humans have. You can’t explain things to dogs because they don’t get it. Moreover, they can’t explain themselves. Not like us.

We can explain anything, and that’s the problem.