24. Enough?

Absence makes the h. grow f., they say, and I do believe them.  But for active, job-oriented pets like dogs and donkeys, a day off isn’t so much a welcome holiday as a slough of despond.  While domesticated animals are experts at coping with tedium, they don’t always like it — it’s not as if they can crack open a book, or go see a movie, or clean out a closet.  Once humans introduce them to learning or work or entertainment, they usually take to it zealously, and miss it when it’s missing.

When I first became a dog owner, I drastically reduced my movie-going and I packed my photography darkroom into a box in the closet.  I committed to applying the vast majority of my nonwork hours to quality time for the dog. Humans bred dogs for captivity in our houses and yards, to serve as our companions, so now it’s my responsibility to reciprocate that companionship by providing walks or woods running, chew toys or hide-and-seek, obedience classes or trick training.

Since I never owned the horses I rode, however, I worked them only two or three times a week, guilt-free, knowing that the owner would contribute his or her own days at the barn as well.  Plus, horses get turned out with equine buddies and/or get used by students in riding lessons.  I wasn’t their only social outlet.

Gus doesn’t have a lot of outlets.  He gets walked between paddock and stall, Sandy looks after his needs, and people say hi to him in passing.  Unlike his horsey colleagues, he seems to derive little fulfillment from herd time in turnout; his donkeyness craves other action and stimulation.  Now that he’s come to expect and enjoy my appearances in the role of entertainer and Pez dispenser, I’m pretty sure I can tell that his response is usually a hair duller on any second consecutive day and a hair sharper after a day or two off.  Naturally I find our sessions more gratifying when he’s up and keen; I just wonder, is part of his keenness the fruit of desperation, which I flatter myself by characterizing as pleasure in my company?

Competitive dog trainers who want ribbons and titles often confine their dogs in crates much of the time.  When the dogs are released for a training session or a trip to a show, of course they’re peppy and bright.  They learn hungrily and earn their owners lots of big rosettes.  Thing is, all that crate time alone must be a major drag.  Is that how Gus feels when I’m absent for a day or two days?  Should I go play with him every day?  What he’d really like is multiple sessions every day.  I’ve always said excellence is overrated and good-enough is enough, but in this case am I doing enough?  Where’s the line between plenty and paucity?

I do believe my every-other-day visits make an appreciable difference in Gus’s life.  I’ve considered trying to increase them, and parts of me would relish more time with Gus and at the barn, but other parts of me want to do other things.  I dasn’t make any promises, as I’d hate to whet his appetite and then start skimping on the portions.

OK, then, enuff a’ready.