Dog-Walking As Metaphor

We have an extra dog this week. The Pug, Princess Wiggle-butt (not her real name) is in the house. This makes the evening patrol a little slapstick. Jonah reconnoiters the neighborhood to assert his sovereignty. Like a well-organized leader, he marches with military precision and chooses his targets judiciously. Semper fi!

The happy little Miss wants to sniff every blade of grass, every tree, every everything, on both sides of the sidewalk, not in consecutive order but with joyous abandon.

We choreograph the leashes (under and over, do si do) so it’s no problem. But I found myself in the position of wanting to explain to Her Pugness that you can’t sniff it all. No, I didn’t try to reason with a dog, but it did start me thinking.

I’ll never sit sesshin with a zen master in a Japanese monastery. Nor am I likely to ride the Trans-Siberian railroad (nod to Steve Hely, wherever you are.) I have no desire to see Katmandu, or the Forbidden City, or even the Taj Mahal. My father was a committed traveler, who had his passport stamped with pride of conquest. If the only Paris I ever see again is on the Las Vegas Strip, I’ll still be happy.

There’s a Sufi story I don’t remember, but the point is that when you travel, you take yourself with you and that’s what you find there. Like the dogs peeing on the same trees night after night, I happily return to Las Vegas to relax in the casino and luxuriate in the restaurants when I feel the need to be Elsewhere. We’ll be there in the foreseeable future. The dogs can only hit so many trees, and we can only eat so many meals. Like them, we have to choose judiciously. Dog-walking truly is a metaphor, but then, so is Las Vegas--- another metaphor, for another post.

By the way, the nicest Ladies’ Room in Vegas is in the Venetian. I have a photograph if you ever want to see it.