It's hard to be mad at someone who misses you while you're asleep

Hello Everyone, In the realm of 'the wisdom of children' philosophy, it's hard to top Bill Watterson. His cartoon, Calvin and Hobbes, was one of the most popular in the world in its day and was filled with observations of the world through a child's eyes.

I was a big fan of it growing up, and while the teen-aged me thought Watterson about on par with Plato in the philosophy department, I've grown out of some of that kind of thinking. But not all of it. There were and are some great thoughts in his work. I'd be happy if my own writing had half as many insights.

One of those came to me the other day was when I was taking Arthur and Jada for a walk at Bruce Pit. Jada, to put it mildly, is enthusiastic about going to any park, and very much so about this one in particular. Add in the fact that she loves Arthur and that we're all going together, and her excitement gets cranked to 11. Like, caffeinated-kid-on-Christmas-morning excited. If she could run in more than one direction at a time, she would.

She gets so excited that Arthur is sometimes reluctant to get out of the car at first. He loves the park too, but shares my Anglo-Saxon approach to enthusiasm. He has German Shepherd and Rottweiler ancestry, after all. (We think). He'll stand there while Jada works herself up into a lather, barking and spinning and so on. He looks annoyed. He really wants to get out and go running too, but she's just so crazy.

Other times, he'll jump out with her, only to have to fend her off with barks and snarls and some paws to the face. That he can sometimes look pretty intimidating with fangs showing and hair up has absolutely no effect on Jada. That's just horsing around for her.

Every time though, after settling the initial bit of excitement, Jada will run off into the park and Arthur will run off after her. They'll play and run and sniff and generally have a grand time. They come back to the car, tails wagging and mouths open, panting. Things are quiet on the ride home.

In the cartoon, Calvin wakes up to his pet tiger/real tiger jumping on him first thing in the morning. He too is annoyed at being assaulted by an over-enthusiastic companion, but like Arthur, he takes off running after his friend to go play. He too loves the game.

It can be annoying to have a friend whose energy sometimes overflows, but it's hard to stay mad at them.

wes

#Dogs #Arthur #Jada