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An Aside: We Could All Learn from Dogs

             I had a perfectly horrible experience yesterday.  I have two dogs, both Other People's Rejects;  Diamond, the Nazi Dog (Dachschund, with the stubborn, fresh attitude that less stellar specimens of that breed can exhibit), and Lucy, a Boxer/Mastiff mix.  Diamond is 16 lbs, Lucy is about 80 lbs.  Now, Lucy really is a sweet-natured girl, and Diamond is an absolute pest.  He pesters my girl, licking, and licking,and licking, and licking, and licking, for days on end, until finally she becomes exasperated and rounds on the little bugger.  Well, she gave HIM a licking that resulted in his poor little eyeball popping out of his skull, and an emergency vet visit that cost the princely sum of $750 (money, incidentally, that I had to call my father, in tears, to pay).
              Don't get me wrong, I don't really blame either of the foolish creatures.  They're just dogs being dogs; if anything, the blame rests firmly with me for thinking I could actually get away with having two dogs of such disparate sizes.  I've come to the conclusion that I'm going to have to rehome Lucy (of the two, she exhibits a far superior temperament-she may kick a dog's ass, but she'd never lift a lip to a person, of that I'm sure.  Diamond, on the other paw, has given several people, myself included, the Big Teutonic Chomp.  I did mention he's a right bastard at times?  But he loves his mumma dearly, even though she's Mumma #3...So, despite the fact that I'm really more of a Lucy-dog kind of girl, preferring large, slobbery, genial dogs to nasty tempered little purebreds, the most humane option is to find Lucy someone else to slobber on.  Preferably someone with no smaller dogs or cats.  Or children, we may as well throw in there.  She is, after all, a pound puppy of unknown history.)
            The point of this aside, the incident that really set me to musing on how we humans could learn a thing or twenty from dogs, was Diamond's reaction to Lucy later in the day.  He holds no grudge (mind you, I keep the two separated now), but is eager to resume his licking relationship, as indicated by the happy tailwagging he exhibited.
             Now, ok, maybe he's just supremely stupid, or suffered some head trauma, and that's why he didn't have the perfectly understandable reaction of being deathly afraid of the creature, 4 times his size, who created such a hellish afternoon for him.  Or maybe he's exhibiting that abused spouse attitude, and he loves the bitch despite the beating.  I prefer to believe that he just doesn't hold a grudge; little doggy minds don't recall the past (this is why we shouldn't punish them unless we catch them In The Act...they don't understand) and as far as he's concerned, it's all good.
           Although, about that little doggy minds not remembering...Lucy knows she screwed up big time;  all day yesterday she ducked her head and acted very skittish, as though I beat her (I didn't; I didn't even yell at the silly doggy directly after the fact...too busy going into Panic, Panic, Get Dressed, Call Vet, Get Dog to Vet and then Cry mode) and even today she senses, and behaves, as though she's on very thin ice.  And it breaks my heart to have to rehome her; I'm not in the habit of adopting animals to give them up later.  Well, maybe we'll see what happens.  I guess, if it comes down to it, I can just keep the two fools apart.  I just wish she'd get the message that I'm not going to kill her, or let bad things happen, just because she was a dog being a dog and it got out of paw (and pocket, incidentally.).  Poor miss, I keep reassuring her...*sigh*.  And poor Diamond has really been a champion about the whole eye-sewn-and-buttoned shut, medication and Elizabethan collar scene...really, he's been a gem (ar ar), for him, with very little fussing.
               But we could all learn from dogs.  Turn the other eyeball.