On dogs and empathy

Hello Everyone,

I wrote this letters a few weeks ago when I was sick for a few days.

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Dogs are famous for them empathy. Stories abound of the deep bond between people and dogs, lifelong friendships often mentioned in contrast to the cold, distant approach of cats. Dogs are emotion incarnate. They love and hate without the shackle of civilization.

Which brings me to my recent illness. This past week, up to and including the time at which I am writing this, I've been under the weather. Mostly a chest and sinus cold. I took a couple of days of work and tried to spend them mostly in bed. I was only mildly successful at that. It's unsurprisingly boring.

Like a lot of people, I wish I could get more small stuff done during the day. The idea of having a day or two at home when I was normally scheduled to work sounds amazing. I can clean up, do various odd jobs, etc. But you can't. You're stuck in bed. It's the worst. Unless you're Arthur, in which case it's a festival. If you happen to already spend most of your day in bed, like my lazy, shiftless roommate, having a napping buddy is awesome. We can hang out on the couch and read, then draw the blinds and sleep in the actual bed for awhile, then maybe go back to the couch. It's a virtuous cycle. I think, or at least I like to think, that on some level, he's aware that I am in distress when I am home sick. But he's certainly not too worried about it. Rather than the deep reciprocal bond mentioned above, the nature of human-canine relationships is sometimes quite one directional. We care about their well being and put all kinds of time and effort (and money) into making sure they are fit and healthy, but they figure we can look after ourselves. So, instead of the concern voiced by my human compatriots, Arthur was thrilled to bits that I was spending the day with him. So much so that, as mentioned in a previous email, he came jumping on to the bed, while still quite wet from the dog park, when he returned from his twice weekly group runs. Thanks buddy. wes