Having been in St. Cloud for a while, in addition to hanging out with Elissa, which I haven't really gotten to do since college (three years ago!), I've also gotten a chance to get to know Cache, her dog. Cache is the first dog I've gotten close to other than Dwight. It's fairly difficult to get to know most people's dogs in the way that their owners know them--and because of this, other people's dogs pretty much end up just seeming like dogs. Nothing special, just some creature who exists in someone else's house.

But with Cache, it's different. Not only have I fed and pottied him more than a couple times, he's also my sleeping buddy, since the cats get to sleep with Aaron B. and Elissa. So I've come to discover the way Cache gives "hugs" on the couch by putting his front paws around your lap, and then slowly collapses so that his torso is in your lap, and then twists upside down so that his tongue hangs out and his chest is in the perfect place for a nice scratch. And the way he takes advantage of any weakness in the morning--if he sees me open my eyes just once, he will not rest until we are up and out of bed, on the way to potty and preferably food as well.

In getting to know Cache, I've been surprised at seeing how easily everything seems to go for him. First, it was the fluid way his joints moved as he walked, in contrast to Dwight's stiffer-legged gait. Cache seems as indestructible as I had always thought all dogs were before I got Dwight. He is perfectly fine to be grabbed by his scruff, thrown around in rough play, and to slip around on the hardwood floor. Second, on his first ever trip to the dog park, Cache seemed to immediately grasp how to communicate with other dogs. Whereas Dwight at first seemed to only understand vocal communication--if a dog barked at him, no matter how small the dog was, he would back down; otherwise, he would continue chewing and licking another dog's ears even if the other dog's hackles were standing up. Finally, Cache takes negative reinforcement fairly well--his ego seeming quite as indestructible as everything else about him. Dwight, on the other hand, kennels himself if I happen to raise my voice.

In the end, these difference don't matter much in the scheme of things. Having Cache as a comparison has merely helped me to understand how much of Dwight is dog-ness, and how much of him is pure Dwight-ness.


But on more contemplative days, I can't help but to notice how Cache's differences from Dwight seem to mirror the differences between Elissa's life and mine. Elissa's life in St. Cloud is ordered--things stay where they belong, and the kitchen table is rarely, if ever, obscured with unfinished projects and scrap paper. She has things to do and a schedule on which to do them...and she follows this schedule for the most part. After three years of med school, I've gotten used to eating when I feel like it and taking my fun wherever and whenever I can get it, even if it means driving around a dead city at 4 am in the morning. I believe it was similar for Elissa while she was finishing her master's degree just a couple of months ago. But her life now includes a sunlit house with a deck, a huge, kelly green yard, and a dog who seems to encapsulate the order and all-american-ness of it all.

And so, on these days, I wonder: if I find a dream job, and move into my dream house, will Dwight magically stop limping forever and become a perfectly healthy dog, to mirror my perfectly healthy life? I suppose one can always hope.