Walking the dog

I have had my dog for a year and a half.  I am slowly learning her ways, how she communicates her fears, her needs, her moods.  She is no longer a puppy, and as she has grown, I have had to adjust to her behaviors.  A vivacious and rambunctious puppy has become a young dog who has had to deal with dogs and people and situations that living in the city brings.

She has learned to be weary of certain dogs and I have learned to trust her on what she tells me about them.  A typical morning walk will lead to encountering four different types of dogs.

1. Léda shows no interest in another dog walking by, they walk past each other with no fuss, no greetings.  This is usually an elderly dog, calm, cool, indifferent, usually well-behaved or too tired to want any interaction with a youngster.
2. Léda sees another dog from afar and submits immediately by going down on all fours.  If the other dog is well-behaved, they will end up greeting each other, if it is poorly mannered, Léda will not wish to greet it at all and pull and run away.
3. Léda immediately wants to go and play -- this is usually with another young dog, usually a young puppy.
4. The other dog is clearly scared and starts barking; Léda usually will avoid these dogs all on her own.

The only problematic encounter I have is with #2 above.  Often an "agressive" dog's owner will insist that his/her dog is very friendly.  The dog is sometimes off leash or on a very loose retractable leash.  It is usually very forward and insistant and basically does not follow its master's commands.  These dog owners are usually upset when I pick my dog up and walk away from the situation, which is clearly unpleasant to her.  I used to think that Léda needed to learn to deal with these dogs, but after her being bitten a few times, and having scars to remind me of them, I have decided that she is the best judge of which dog she wants to have an interaction with.  For that very reason, we go on organized dog outings with dogs that she knows rather than to dog parks where there are too many poorly behaved dogs and dog owners who insist that their dogs are wonderful and friendly but the evidence is all to the contrary.  

There are also dog owners who insist that the bullying behavior of their dog is "natural" to the breed and so there is nothing to be done.  That is a whole other situation and may be a reason why democracies fail.  Thankfully, they are a tiny minority and I have learned to avoid specific persons in my immediate surroundings.

Learning to understand and "listen" to my dog has not come overnight.  It has taken time for me to learn to read her, and she has had to learn on her own the world that she lives in, where not all other dogs are play-mates and where certain are even dangerous.

This morning, I started to think that perhaps it is the same with painting.  Painting is this silent non-verbal friend.  I often impose my will on her, and sometimes the paint will be cooperative, and other times, it will be downright stubborn and onerous.  Sometimes, the painting muse is indifferent, sometimes it is excited, sometimes it is anxious.  It takes time to learn to listen to this painting muse, it takes years perhaps to learn to figure out how to listen to her so that her needs are taken care of before our own egos, our own ids, our own fancies.  And when certain people yell and scream their opinions of what painting should be or whether it should even be practiced, perhaps it would be wiser to listen to that silence before us rather than be aggressed, bullied, or pushed into compromise.  Painting requires that open mind and that willingness to listen quietly at silence.