Canter Bridge

The tectonic plates of the soul launched one giant sigh of relief when Sammy walked outside and peed for the first time. When he nailed his first dumper in the grass by the bird feeder, the rejoicing could be heard clear across town.

The unthinkable ‘what if …?’ still haunts my more brooding moments.

What if the boy had not been house trained? In that insanity that at some moment makes all adoptions plausible rather than ludicrous, we had never asked the Rhodesian Ridgeback rescuer volunteer whether Simba—as he was then known—was house trained or not. She must have found us dangerously naive, yet it was not in her best interests to ask us to ask.

So she didn’t. So neither did we.

What if carpets and grass were all the same to him? What if he’d marked our every wall with lifted leg, conscience unburdened by the assumptions of human domesticity? What if a reeking pile on the kitchen floor carried in his unschooled soul all the guiltless pleasure of the PetSmart bone he’s taken to tracking down and gnawing?

How does one house train a blind dog? Surely there are best practices even for this, but where would one begin to discover them? Blind dog defecation conferences? How to get your sightless canine to pee outside podcasts? The audiences cannot possibly reach critical mass. What are the chances of a bona fide market?

The mind reels. This could have been a far different adventure.

Time will have its way and we will one day cease to marvel over the glories of backyard urination. I will eventually find in scooping up the Samster’s piles the same unremarkable tedium that led me from one poo to the next in the days of Dear Departed (but conveniently sighted) Tucker.

But for now, every bumptious but purposeful wandering to the backyard, every moving of the bowels, every instant of urinary satisfaction is a thing to be praised. He must think he’s painted a Picasso.