Turn left at the corner

My dog Niko is a trained and certified therapy dog and reading partner, 

which means he (and I) can go into nursing homes, assisted living residences, libraries, and schools to visit, do tricks, read aloud, or just lie around and be funny and/or comforting, whichever the situation calls for. So, when we pass someone on a walk, he stops and gazes expectantly at the passerby. That’s his job, to invite people into relationship, and he is good at it.

For that reason he has always loved to go onto the local college campus. Students stopped, singly, in small groups, and in droves, and asked – "Can I pet your dog?" Niko's response was to lean in, to sit, lie down, or turn belly up, always receiving laughter and delight in return. Students would compliment him and talk about how much they missed their dogs. "He chose ME!" they would exclaim if he lingered longer by one, melt into a prone position, and display his belly. 

 

Then COVID came. The campus emptied out. Niko  still preferred to turn left at the end of the block to go onto the campus, but it was disappointing; squirrels and an occasional rabbit were all he could find to divert his attention, but he had those at home. He missed his students, but each time we turned left; he is a dog of unquenchable hope. 

Then COVID receded! Students came back, and Niko stepped a little lighter when we turned onto the campus, where he spotted once again his pals, his fans, his reason to be! But here is the thing. After two years of COVID, of isolation, of mixed messages about how COVID spread (You might get it if you pet a dog!), the students now take no notice of Niko. They don’t pet him, or stop to reminisce about the dogs they left at home. They hurry past, phones at their faces, looking neither left nor right and certainly not at the expectant dog, who goes stock still when he spots one student or a gang, looking up at their faces, invitingly, even pathetically, slowly wagging his tail in gentle invitation. Students are now complete in themselves and their phones. 

Lucky for Niko, the occasional staff person does still stop and R. S. V.P. to Niko's invitation, and they talk about how he can smell their dog(s), or offer him a biscuit, or sadly tell about the dg they recently lost; some proudly describe the cat or two or three at home, waiting patiently for their return home at days end. 

 So there you have it: The therapy dog eager to be in relationship, the students fearful, unnoticing, isolated. But in spite of two snowstorms in the last week, each bringing seven inches of snow to our north side of the hill, there is no doubt that the season is turning and the spring display of new life is not far distant. Snowdrops have been seen; a few benighted crocuses are poking their purple flowers up through the melting snow.  

I would like to promise Niko that the students, too, will not be able to resist the call to warmth and welcome, and Niko will have his job back again. And he, possessing a hope and faith in the goodness of the world unrivaled by any religious adherent, will continue his insistence that we turn left at the corner.   Students, staff, squirrels, rabbits. The world is always full of lovely new possibilities.