Few tables would have been long enough to seat the dozens of family and friends gathered through the ether for our family’s Passover seder last Friday night.
My afikomen prize was how close I felt to others without actually touching them. And the sense that dining tables are so passé. Online, I got to see and hear everyone (including family pets) in a myriad of dimensions at once. Like the lens that Braque and Picasso must have looked through before they shattered still lives and people — and reassembled them in ways that made the world gasp.
If this technophobe can laud social media, anything is possible. But this was no “miracle” washing over my passive self. It was a choice years in the making — like my wife Susan’s and my choice to begin adopting companion animals eight years ago.
We have been transformed by our dogs — and been reminded that we have a long way to go as people, and pet parents:
Our world is larger. Until Susan and I committed to one another, everything that lived inside our heads about ourselves and each other was rooted in assumption. Our marriage allowed us to appreciate the ways in which we overlapped and the ways we remained distinct. The same happened when we brought Louie and Lilly into our family — only magnified because we did not speak or understand canine “language.” Learning our dog’s facial and body language smashed our anthropomorphic assumptions against the wall. And deepened our connection.
Pets bring out our best. At day’s end our dogs don’t care about our professional victories or defeats. The reception is always the same: exuberant barks, the offer of a paw and a warm tongue bath. Such unconditional acceptance of our essential selves inspires us to love and accept ourselves, each other and those we struggle to understand. We’ve learned that we have infinitely more to give than we thought we did. The consistency of our pet’s devotion also keeps our emotional pendulums from swinging wildly with life’s highs and lows.
The lessons never stop. Just as we humans need to adapt and change with an ever-shifting environment, so do our animal companions. Like us, our dogs have had “good” days and “bad” days. We once believed that Louie and Lilly had each turned a behavioral corner only to experience a humbling flare up in response to another person or animal. As with humans, progress with pets is not linear. It is rather a line that zigs and zags with an upward trend — so long as we’re paying attention. There’s always something around the next corner.
We’re not all-powerful. As responsible pet parents, we wanted Louie and Lilly to become paragons of good behavior toward humans and other animals. Sadly, and despite extensive desensitization training and professional interventions, Louie was never able to temper his fear-based aggression toward strangers who approached suddenly. However, he flourished on the horse ranch where he was re-homed after many tears. Over time, Lilly’s gyrations upon first spotting neighborhood dogs have mellowed to half a twirl. We let her make and keep the friends she wants and have learned how to intercept her triggers. Well, almost.
I once viewed the prospect of pet parenting as a daunting responsibility, a loss of freedom. Now, I see it as our Passover seder in the age of corona: an ingenious cubist portrait with so many sides to savor.
Toting the 10 commandments, Moses confronted the freed Hebrew slaves who danced with debauchery at the base of Mount Sinai:
“There is no freedom without the law.”
In our world of pet parenting, there is no “freedom" without the love.