MOPING

Mike left last Saturday (May 12) to geocache Nevada, leaving Nellie and me at home. Hallie was here when he left, and we took Nellie and went to the farm for the weekend. Nellie was happy while Hallie was with us, but then Hallie said good-bye and left and Nellie commenced to mope big time.

When an adult human mopes, you can deal with it somehow. “What’s wrong?” you ask. “Was it something I said (did, didn’t do, spent)?” In my experience, you can even reason with a child. “Look – Daddy’s gone for a while. Let me show you the calendar and we’ll count the days until he comes back. Meanwhile, how about some ice cream? And the next time Daddy calls, you can talk to him.”

But it’s a real trial when the moper is the dog. You can’t reason with a dog. Nellie understands certain concepts, such as walk, dinner / food, cookie, lick this bowl, kennel, brush teeth, and Mike is gone. But she doesn’t understand time concepts. She judges each moment on its own merits, not altogether a bad thing until something isn’t right with her world. And things are not right with Nellie’s world if her master is gone.

 

But Nellie does get something out of what I say. “Mike will be home soon,” I said yesterday afternoon “You’ll hear him coming on his motorcycle. Eeeeeerrooooooow - putta, putta, putta.” And with that she went to the sliding glass door and stood there watching for quite some time, but when Mike didn’t show, she begged for a walk. We were just leaving the house when Mike roared in.

Oh joy! Oh happiness! All was right in Nellie’s world with Mike’s return. After the initial excitement she became nonchalant, as if to say, “I knew he’d be back. What’s the big deal? You humans make way too much of this stuff.” KW