The Limits of Progress
Friday, 10 January
“Has it really been eight years?” David asked somewhat plaintively, I have to say, when I mentioned the anniversary.
His wistful question referred to the arrival of our dog Tasha, aka The Princess, The Indefatigable One, in our lives.
Eight years ago today (10 January) I cut my piano lesson short (merci encore, Françoise, pour ta compréhension !) and drove 183km to the SPA animal refuge in Tilloy-les-Moufflaines to rescue by adoption the terrified, emaciated creature I had seen on the internet three days prior and couldn’t get off my screen or out of my mind (full story here). The creature who has dominated if not ruled (David might say) our lives ever since.
Four years ago the birthday assigned to Tasha by the SPA, January 6th (ie the day she was picked up off the streets of Arras), took on global significance when the US Congress was attacked by Donald Trump supporters claiming the election that Joe Biden won had been stolen. An attack from which American democracy – and recent events are not encouraging – may never recover.
It is hard to believe that Tasha is now 10, since The Indefatigable One she remains.
It is even harder to believe that politically we are back to - or worse than - where we were eight years ago. David’s plangent tone could just as easily have been induced by the looming second reign of Donald Trump, this time with his adopted mad-dog billionaire Elon Musk. Elected on promises of helping the average American, Mr Trump seems more intent on buying or invading Greenland and/or Panama, on turning Canada into the the 51st state and on making the super-rich both richer and beholden to him.
I had hopes Tasha would calm down as she matured. Be less demanding of exercise and more tolerant of humans and other dogs. Much progress, which I have often recorded in these virtual pages, has been made. But you cannot change the nature of the beast.
Just this morning, arriving in the dark at the Tuileries, she heard a dog barking in the distance and took off, barking madly herself and scaring a jogger. In the Perche the morning of her birthday, she decided it was not yet time to go home and off she charged into the woods, oblivious to the sound of her name. She still has not learned to play nicely with her toys.
Fortunately Tasha also has many endearing qualities. She is clever (opens doors with her paws and has squeak conversations with the squeak toys she hasn't destroyed, for example) and funny and loves our family; our family loves her.
She gets me out of the house and exercised, lies at my side while I work and is fully dedicated to her job as our protector.
And she is, after all, a dog, not the ruler of what today we can still call the free world.
It's wired in to us, a belief in 'progress', a hopefulness that we'll improve the behaviour of our pet or make the world a better place. But the faith is getting very hard to keep.
Postscript: Tasha must have read this text while I was making my coffee this Saturday morning. During our walk, she obeyed my every word - an angel!
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