Puppies and people: a parable for the “walking wounded” with unknown hurts

There’s another apartment complex about three blocks north of mine here in Far South Lancaster.

When I was out for a walk last Sunday afternoon, I noticed a young puppy, couldn’t have been too much past a month old, beside the Dumpster for the complex. It looked like it might have had a St. Bernard ancestor; if not, maybe a golden retriever would have explained the large size for a young puppy, as well as the domed head. He seemed skittish, but did let me briefly touch him.

Later Sunday, still before sundown, I went for a walk in the same area. The puppy was still out. A lady from one of the apartments was out, and said it appeared to have been abandoned, which confirmed my impression. She said he had been feeding it. I mentioned that if nobody claimed it in a day or two, I might just “abscond” with it.

The puppy was even more skittish by now. There was a crawl space under the Dumpster, and it quickly burrowed all the way under it.

When I reached to try to pet it, it snapped at me, and pretty ferociously for being as young as it was. That confirmed another impression of mine — not only had this puppy been abandoned, it had likely been abused. That’s about the only way a young pup gets that snappish out of what appears to be aggression but is actually fear.

That puppy seemed to offer a parable.

None of us is fully aware of ourselves, whoever “we” may be. Some of us are less aware, though, of at least parts of ourselves. We may be unaware of why we hurt. We may be unaware of how we react today to long-ago, now internalized hurts. We may not even know to react differently, or not to interpret similar stimuli as though they were exactly the same, coming from the old hurts and old hurters.

So, give your inner child a healthy, unabused inner puppy of the mind to play with.

I’m sure I need to remember to do that more.

And perhaps we can all learn more empathy from such things.