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Lost Dogs and Dialogues

Lately, with her foot speed and agility improving daily, Emma's big temptation is to run away. Not much of a problem in the park, as long as you're paying attention, but utterly hair-raising on a busy sidewalk or parking lot.

I have tried saying "No" in every possible way, to no avail. Current parenting books claim that yelling, let alone physical intimidation, will only convince the child that you are a dangerous lunatic, which only makes the notion of running away seem more sensible.

Rather than show anger, parents are now supposed to "have dialogue" with our children, which means a conversation where no one yells or bites. I have had some "dialogue" with Emma about running away, which consists of me talking and her wiggling to get free.

The situation became more complicated when Wilson the Hundred-Pound Labrador ran away, on July 5th, bringing new meaning to the phrase "at large." He probably meant to escape on the actual holiday, but he's so dumb it took him a day to realize how scared he was. When he heard the fireworks on the 4th, his brain secreted some fear hormone that took a wrong turn. The next evening, without warning, the destination brain cells were reached, some neurons fired, and Bingo! His was as the strength of ten dogs, and he broke through the gate to his freedom, and, no doubt, to complete and total confusion.

Loud noises yesterday! Run!

We ran all over the neighborhood, making phone calls, knocking on neighbors' doors. Emma could see that we were agitated, and she wanted to know why. "Wilson isn't supposed to run away," I explained. "I want him to come home before anything happens to him."

Her expression clouded a little bit at the suggestion of bad things happening out in the world, and she pressed me for details. Rather than babbling frantically about drunken hoodlums using him for target practice and evil veterinarians snatching him to harvest his organs, I muttered that we miss him and we wish he were home.

The last time he ran away he returned on his own during the night, so we left the gate open for him, but no dice. The next morning, we were on the verge of making the dreaded call to the animal shelter when the phone rang.

It was Heidi, Emma's day care provider, calling from her home several blocks away. Through some unexplainable feat of canine navigation, Wilson had arrived at her door, literally. This is a place he has visited maybe twice in two years, and probably for a grand total of five minutes.

There was no logical way in the world to explain this to Emma, so I didn't even try. As I brought her to day care a few minutes later, there was Wilson, looking a little rough around the edges, but otherwise perfectly happy, not a bad thought anywhere in that pebble of a brain.

Emma wanted to know if he was in trouble. "Yes he is," I told her. "When we go home we're going to have a talk."

And indeed, we "had dialogue," which went in one of his ears and out the other without the slightest resistance.

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© Todd Pinsky 1998-2002. All rights reserved.