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My Poodle Teacher: What I’ve Learned From Rocky About Accepting Change
When my friend Marge, who’s now pushing 103, asks how we’re “doing” in Paris, I say “some good, some bad” and then add, “But Rocky is really happy here!”
“Good,” says Marge. “You should learn from him.”
She’s right. Anyone who’s spends time around animals knows — and research confirms — that not only do our pets communicate with us, they are often our teachers. Hence, the unexpected popularity of the Netflix documentary, My Octopus Teacher.
So, why not my Poodle teacher?
Rocky, a caniche nain, as the French call him (“dwarf poodle”), is the youngest of our immediate-family ecosystem: two humans, one 17-month-old dog. We frequently change homes — and cities. Eleven days ago, we began living in a different country as well.
The truth is, everyone is dealing with the unfamiliar and the difficult these days, not just us. Many have it much worse. But we neither planned nor anticipated a move in the midst of the pandemic. And in the harried months before our departure, Rocky — like all young creatures cared for by older, stressed-out humans — continually found new ways to demand our attention.
He hid, chewed up, or peed on anything he couldn’t eat: shoes, emery boards, pens, cardboard boxes. He unrolled the toilet paper, dug out the sheepskin lining of my Uggs slippers, always leaving a trail of masticated lambs wool in his wake. At night, we humans counted how many times a day we wanted to kill him.
Miraculously, we haven’t wanted to kill him since we arrived in Paris.
Admittedly, he had a short bout of jet lag. But who can blame him given the six-hour time difference? At 11 pm, he didn’t think, Hey! Why are they putting me in my crate at 5 pm? Dogs have no concept of time. But when his humans finally woke up at 10 am Paris time, his body knew something was wrong.
So, there we are — me dazed and Rocky raring to go out to pee. I gingerly walk down the dark, unfamiliar stairway, Rocky tugging ahead. Downstairs, I fumble to push the button that opens the first door of our lobby when Rocky decides he can’t wait another second. He squats on the marble tile. I swoop him up, hoping to stop the stream, just as an…
