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Wrong Dog


He is small, but mighty,
and his might comes,
not by reason of muscular genes,
but by hard training
and dedication.

Cooper protects us
from whatever other threat
should come leashed
down the street.

Most of the dogs in our neighborhood
are good-natured critters, perfectly willing
to share the road with whatever comes by,
but Cooper considers them all to be intruders.
Truth be told, it is almost a problem:
whatever the size of the dog-come-ambling.
Cooper springs at him, stopped only by his leash
and the frantic pleas of his new owner-walkers
that he be a good dog.

But Cooper is afraid of nothing,
no threat, no useless peacenik
wanting only to sniff along the roadside,
and at whatever dog comes along.
Cooper sleeps on a tiger,
quite as if the tiger represented
no threat, at all.  So when
Cooper hits the street,
he is not cowed by . . . oh,
Bowser-the-Schnauzer,
for instance, twice his size
and four-times his amiability.

Once beyond the Shock and Awe of his initial charge,
Cooper is perfectly happy to sniff without shame,
and to trot alongside his former, mortal enemies.
Mari and I are uneasy,
apologetic, even,
anxious for detente.
We cannot rid ourselves of the tiger, since the tiger belongs to Jao,
and Cooper is not interested in training on a pussy cat or bunny,
which might temper his bluster and bravado.

I wonder about a wall
down the middle of the road,
but the City will not permit it,
nor are the neighbors willing
to pay for it, so an irrational
national solution will not work
here, either.  And after all,
Cooper is half-Chihuahua.
The mini-Doberman in him
is unreconciled to himself.

But I am drifting off into politics:  wrong dog.



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