The Dog Who Trained Me

What I Learned from Training My Stubborn Breed Dog

Six months ago, a couple of days after Persian New Year, my dog died tragically in an accident

I feel obliged to state – right here in the beginning – that this essay is not a story of how I loved and missed my dog and how good it is to keep a dog as a pet. As a matter of fact, I loath stories of this kind and think of it’s protagonists as pathetic needy beings who get carried away by emotional whirls of all kind to the point where they can’t step back, see and analyze the events for what they really are.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with loving a dog, I just don’t think it necessary to project human emotions to them or to see them as beings capable of returning love and affection. As biology tells us, all animals act according to their instincts which means they are programmed to behave in a certain way with just a little bit of leeway which can be manipulated by humans. And as Jack London recounts in his story To Build a Fire, unlike humans, a dog is capable of loving a new owner just the same as a previous dead one because what he is after more than anything is fulfilling his needs. In other words, the behavior on behalf of the dog is something else; we humans call it love.

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