Confronting my fears. Dr. Phil for dogs?I am here to announce that phobias and fears are not the exclusive domain of the rich or the purebred canine. I, Juno of uncertain origins, have a near genius for opening the door to phobic visitations. Of course, there’s my longstanding fear of loud noises and my studious refusal to take walks during firecracker season. In addition to these burdens, there’s my non-phobic, but insistent, skin irritation, which we still haven’t managed to whip into submission.
Well, this morning, I discovered a new phobia—fear of hardwood floors. Here’s how it came about.
On Shane’s insistence, I woke up this morning and bounced up from my bed to follow him and Joan to the back door so we could go into the yard. I had no trouble crossing the low-pile of the living room rug, but, suddenly I was confronted with that diagonally laid hardwood floor—a slippery barrier between the rug and the cool kitchen tile where I love to stretch out on a hot day.
Was it the diagonal pattern that stopped me in my tracks? I sat down—a slow careful easing of my rear-end into the non-slip security of the red rug. I looked. It was as though the floor had suddenly loomed up from the black hole of the underworld. It threatened. It mocked.
What would happen if I put forth my paw? Would I fall? Would Shane look down on me? Pondering these questions, which were of immediate concern and not in the least rhetorical, I felt Joan’s arms around me.
“It’s okay,” she said. “Nothing’s going to hurt you. It’s just a floor.”
Shane stared, panting, his tongue hanging, dry, anticipatory. “Come on,” he seemed to say. “I really have to go out.”
Picking up on Shane’s developing anxiety, Joan opened the back door for him and then came back to me. I hadn’t moved, and nothing she could do would get me to do so.
She checked my paws, my legs, my hips, searching, I guess, for some sort of injury. Little did she know that the injury was a thought, which, sometimes, can be the most potent and debilitating injury of all. As I suspected, she didn’t find the source of my fear.
When a relieved and smiling Shane came back inside, she gave us our breakfast. Shane always eats in the kitchen, because that’s what he likes. Joan always brings my food to me in the living room.
While we ate, Joan enjoyed her yummy ten-grain cereal with dates, nuts, and raisins, which she never shares with us. Then she made herself her usual giant cappuccino and held it tenderly, her hands encircling the heated cup like she was in love with it or something.
Well, one of my favorite treats in the world is the foam from Joan’s morning cappuccino. Every morning, I go to her when she’s drinking it—always moaning about the brilliance of her cappuccino and how she doesn’t understand why people pay big bucks to places like Starbucks for ready-made cappuccino that’s never as good, or as generous, as homemade—and she gives me three—always three—tastes of foam.
This morning, what with my new phobia and all, I was forced to decide between floundering in the limbo of the handicapped, which would deny me the three fingers of cappuccino foam, or forcing myself into the relatively luxurious paradiso of the psychologically sound. I chose the latter.
Up I struggled. Lifting my head high so as to dispel any suspicion that I had faked this morning’s phobic episode, I crossed the hardwood floor, my eyes fixed on Joan’s huge cappuccino with its aromatic foam peeking over the rim of the cup. Joan pretended everything was normal. I had my three licks and went outside to lie on the cool wet grass.
Another day, another phobia chased into the dark cavern of self-doubt, another three licks of foam. It’s a life. A dog’s life.
Best wishes and corraggio, Juno
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