Puppyland

Our Oscar is all of eighteen months old; still, we’re told, a puppy.  I was brought up on the theory that every human year is equivalent to seven years for a dog.  Recently I discovered it’s more like for the first couple of years it is closer to a one year equals ten dog years of development.  But no matter what method used, we still have a goofy adolescent dog on our hands; another way of saying their frontal temporal lobes are not closed yet, you know, the part used for reasoned thought.

Now that totally makes sense to me when referencing Oscar. Because Oscar on the one hand, can be a very willing and eager participant with obedience training; he conveys a very attentive desire to make us people happy. Then, while on walks, when he starts sniffing the ground, what dog trainers call tracking, he goes off into another world; a world my wife and I refer to as ‘Puppyland.’ 

   Puppyland exist in deep within the skull as the cloud of thought that is mostly without reason. It is totally devoid of instruction and devoted exclusively to immediate discovery of ‘what’s dat?’  Consequences do not exist in Puppyland neither do command words, such as “no” or “stop” or “stay.” 

On the horizon of Puppyland some words might or might not be recognized, such as ‘come, his name, or sit’ occasionally; never heel.  We use this hard fought wisdom whenever we have to deal with the dog-gone-native aspects of Oscar. Because we thought, as most guilty parents do, that it was something we weren’t doing right.  Just as a last grab at diet would be the cause of him not yielding to our will.  No, it’s not that at all. He is hard wired for Puppyland; and darn if I won’t make a huge association leap to consider that human children are also wired and exist in Puppyland for near about as long as puppies.  I am also convinced that even years after Puppyland has lost its hold and appeal, that it can someday reassert its control without warning. This would explain the host of dumb ideas men have when with their buds and while doing some pretty foolish antics.

  I have a plan, if I ever run for public office, I will include in my platform a Puppyland defense law for all stupid the deeds done by husbands.  Not quite sure yet how to wicker it in for women voters, but I’m working on it. 

What is the conclusive evidence of its influence long after the twenty year mark in man?

Well, just watch an over 40 year old guy on a beach when a cute girl in a bikini is walking past in the opposite direction; 

chest goes out, stomach sucks in…face goes purple.