Conditional

Whoever said a dog’s love is unconditional was greedy to be loved. Poor creatures, those furry friends… they take all the burden of ‘loving unconditionally’ just because they like to have a home, they enjoy routine. It’s our job is to love them unconditionally, not theirs. They can’t even speak for themselves to say: How pompous are you? How much more will you inflate yourself? And by the way, you look ridiculous from down here. Give me a treat and stop blabbing in words I don’t understand.  

I remarked this to myself the other day when I said out loud to a friend: 

“My Maxi loves me unconditionally.” 

I immediately felt my chest tighten. All I wanted was corroboration that it’s okay to ‘lose it’ around him. He’s the only person to whom I literally don’t need to apologize to when I lose my mind. I just look at him and say, “Sorry, man” as I stomp off from an argument to slam a door.  

A desire for loving and being loved without conditions is a human desire. Dogs know how silly we are, they teach us that there is no love without conditions. Try not feeding your dog, or yelling at another member of his home, or sitting in his favorite armchair during naptime, and watch his side-eye and his scoff at your stupidity. Try crying yourself to sleep and watch him fall into depression for three days after. 

When a dog comes back to cuddle near you after you’ve been a horrendous human around him, it does not mean he loves you unconditionally. It means that he gave up on giving you the cold shoulder because, you know, there’s no hope for humans and their desires. To calm down is a calamity for many and my dog knows that I’m one of the many. He knows that the only hope for my thoughts to calm down is to go to Tibet and starve my thoughts with the monks. 

A dog’s love is conditional. These are 10 of my dog’s conditions:

Dog Condition 1: “Be pleasant, so that I can cuddle near you without feeling the earthquake of your angry heartbeats. It makes me feel hot, do you not see the fur coat I have on?”

Dog Condition 2: “Don’t yell. Not when I’m around. My hearing is way more sensitive than you think and I feel the vibration on the floor. Shut up.”

Dog Condition 3: “Wake up. Feed me and Walk me on time. You tell everyone I like routine and then you forget to do these things for BOTH of us. 

Dog Condition 4: “Love yourself like I love myself. It’s okay to lick your own wounds. I won’t do it for you. So stop giving me the responsibility of loving you unconditionally, it’s too much work for me, and for others.”

Dog Condition 5: “Be selfish, it really helps me do the same. When you workout, sing in the shower, take me to the sea to get some salt on my skin, walk me on the back road rather than just in my poop spot- you’re doing yourself a world of good. I will love you more if you keep doing these things. Something tells me you feel the same way about yourself.”

Dog Condition 6: “Do nothing, for once. It’s everything! If you can’t sit idle for a few minutes a day and look outside at nothing, just like I do, then don’t say a word about true love again.”

Dog Condition 7: “Play. I am a Shih Tzu; my heart size is bigger than my body else’s, which means I like to exercise. Throw. The. Damn. Toy. Woman. Otherwise, you are shunned, you gluten-fearing maniac.”

Dog Condition 8: “Relax. Sit down to eat. Don’t train me to do it when you can’t do that for your own mind and body. You look ridiculous from down here, slobbering that pasta standing up.”

Condition 9: “Enjoy staying home with me. The world was running past you when you had a choice to leave home, anyway.” 

Condition 10: “Enjoy what you can with what you have. No matter how little money or how few your possessions are, you have me and I have you. We are rich.” 

Beisan A. Alshafei

May 12th, 2020