Zuzu stops at intersections

Zuzu often follows the giant ogre (who only pretends to be harmless) as he walks around the house. He looks toward her repeatedly and speaks to her (using his imitation of a soft, friendly, conversational tone) as they walk, and he maintains a pace that is easy for both of them. But Zuzu stops walking (and therefore increases the space between her and the ogre) whenever an intersection forces her to make a choice: keep following the ogre; go in that other possible direction without him, turn around and retreat because the ogre might pounce, or just stop and stand still and stare at the ogre.

An intersection is any point from which Zuzu’s path through the house (and around the furnishings) can be changed, or a place from which an alternate path might allow another human to suddenly appear from behind, or off to the side.

She usually just stops and stands still, and stares at the ogre, who seems to get confused (or something) whenever she does this.

The ogre’s word sounds are strange, and every day he tries different ways to make his meanings understandable to her, but Zuzu gets confused whenever he keeps emitting the same series of word sounds while flinging a mish-mash of indecipherable hand gestures in her general direction.

The word sounds are like, “Come on. Come on, girl. What’s wrong, Zu? Okay, you can stay there, but you’re also welcome to follow me, as you should know by now.” After emitting such noises for whatever amount of time he deems sufficient, the ogre turns away from Zuzu and resumes his shambling through the house.

When she was a puppy, Zuzu learned a few words. Just a few. Those few words were thrown in her direction repeatedly, by humans who didn’t seem to care about dogs for the most part, or by humans who cared about dogs, or even cared for dogs, but were not in a position to grow close to any individual dogs. Zuzu’s memories of those few words are not particularly fond, but they are the only human words she learned. For more than six years of life, no human (before recently) had ever spoken to Zuzu as a beloved, permanent, and true companion creature.

Based on lessons she learned (hard-learned) over the years, Zuzu still finds no compelling reason to deliberately move toward—or indeed, to even hope for, or want—one of those mythical, healthy, rewarding emotional relationships between a dog and an ogre/human.

This latest ogre has been attempting to strike a posture of eternal harmlessness. Zuzu has been watching humans for too many years, and she isn’t falling for it.

The ogre isn’t harmless. Zuzu remembers the last time he surprised her and picked her up (an unforgivable betrayal), and she won’t let him do it again.

Baths and veterinary appointments be damned.

Still, it has become clear to Zuzu that the ogre is mostly harmless, most of the time. His movements are not sudden, and his voice remains calm and friendly even in situations where most other humans might have yelled and turned all red and scary-looking.

But she always remembers that last betrayal. For her, the ogre has become “the food-laden ogre who appears to be harmless, but only for as long as distance is maintained at all times.”

The distancing rules were strengthened out of necessity, and although the humans continue to find interesting ways to change things up, Zuzu is still maintaining control of those particular rules.

Have you ever wished you had learned another language as a child because you know how much more difficult (relatively impossible) it is to learn another language as an adult? Zuzu is more than six years old, possibly closer to seven, which puts her human-equivalent age in the forties, and classifies her as a senior dog.

In her youth, Zuzu never learned how to communicate with humans. Now she’s a senior dog who still doesn’t know the everyday language of dogs and humans living together.

She’s an old dog, and learning the language at her age might be the kind of new trick for which the cliché was coined. She has experienced years of mental and emotional stress, and has forged her sense of self in the fires of survival.

Humans cannot understand her, but Zuzu doesn’t particularly care. She knows who she is, and what she has lived through. She knows she is a formidable creature who has risen, above all odds, from a history of pain and loneliness. She knows that any peace she experiences for the rest of her life is long overdue, and any gratitude she might feel can just go around the humans (who will hopefully stick around, she admits to herself) and be directed to the sky and the grass, to the trees, to the crisp wintery mornings that might be gone for another year.