Loki the Lockdown Dog

Lockdown

3. Lockdown

I grew up in bizarre times, for between my two visits to The Vets, humans embarked on the strange project of lockdown. The lockdown came suddenly and with little warning. All the routine habits of the humans were abandoned along with their customary social customs and culture, though I didn't know why. Most of the humans I saw on TV wore masks over their nose and mouth, and seemed loath to touch each other at all.

Dogs are a very empathic species, and some can tune into the feelings of other creatures at will. From my observation of humans it's clear they can no longer do this - that they're trapped in worlds of their own making, separated from each other by imaginary lines and rules. These rules and lines have only worsened as a result of the lockdown and compulsory distancing between them, leaving many of them alone, isolated and warping into social meltdown. My mother told me that many wild animals view most of the ills and threats to life as human in origin. She said there are those who deny even the slightest possibility that humans are capable of possessing a soul. But they've probably never tried looking directly into a human's eyes - a possibility which canines find themselves in an almost unique place to try (well, along with cats - but when have you ever met a cat whose story you could trust?). I have, and what I see there when I do, convinces me that whatever animates me, also animates them. Oh yes, humans have a soul all right, but it's hard to reach and in danger of being lost.

There are dogs who are scientists - mostly border collies and springer spaniels. I'm not one myself, but I've got a basic grasp of cause and effect. However, the logic of cause and effect seemed to be leaving humans all around me. A criticism of dogs is that we live for today, that we don't think of tomorrow and just live in the now. This is true for the most part. Although we do plan and scheme, it's mostly over the course of a few hours, rather than days or years ahead. But what we won't do is endure months or years of misery, for the vague promise of some promised utopia, or even a slight improvement. But that's what the humans appeared to be doing under lockdown - abandoning all their pleasures for one tiny aspect of their existence, which threatened to over-rule all other aspects of their lives. The freedoms that they'd fought so hard for, they seemed quite prepared to abandon in the pursuit of this new belief. I can't explain the causes of lockdown very well, for my canine brain struggles to focus on it for more than a few moments at a time. However, I eventually discovered that lockdown was caused by coronavirus. As time went on I'd hear about other viruses - computer viruses and viral videos for example. But the humans didn't seem nearly as scared of those viruses. Don't ask me for details about coronavirus, for nothing seemed to have changed as far as I could see. Perhaps they were right to do what they did after all, but it was mystifying to a dog living in the now.

Irrespective of any human lockdown, I was on vaccine lockdown for another week. My owner, who's name was Benedict, seemed to be having a debate with himself about how long he was supposed to keep me in for. The vet had said something about, "The trade off between immunity and the importance of socialization," which seemed to have confused him. It certainly confused me, for as I've said, I'm no collie. Benedict lived on his own in a small one-bedroomed flat on the ground floor of a little council block called St Francis House - so it was just the two of us. Luckily, the flat came with its own garden. Whilst it wasn't big enough for me to run fast, at least I could stretch my legs. Over the back fence of the garden I could see oak, sycamore and beech trees, where the magpies would congregate with their shrieking and clicking calls. I imagined all the other creatures, sights and wonders I might experience in the world beyond the fence. I decided to intervene in the argument Benedict was clearly having with himself, about when to let me out for walks. I did this by standing at the front door with my left paw raised and my nose pointing firmly at the path outside. Five days after my second injection I was doing this twenty times a day.

"Oh Loki, we are supposed to wait weeks," he said.

"Woof!"

"Weeks, not days!" he laughed to himself.

"Woof! Woof!"

My protestations were clearly lost on Benedict, who didn't understand a single word of Dog. Humans pride themselves on being the smartest animal on earth, but they simply refuse to learn the language of any of the other species, and usually can't even be bothered to learn the languages of other humans. What really bugs me about humans is their belief they are the sole animal which has a language, despite copious evidence to the contrary. They pride themselves on knowing the 'calls' of other species, which they take as the guttural sound that particular species emits. What they seem entirely unaware of, is that what they mistake for the 'cry' or 'call', is actually that species uttering two words in their own language: "Human. Danger". All the nuances of animal language are entirely lost on them. Now, Benedict seemed smart, so I thought I'd at least be able to get the basics of Dog over to him - but no joy. To humans, animals are just dumb animals, after all.

So it was with sign language that I attempted to form a communicative bond with Benedict. After two days of woofing and pointing, I could sense his resolve starting to crumble. Benedict himself was only allowed out for one hour a day, and after six days of being left on my own in the flat for an hour with no access to the garden, I was contemplating adding further evidence of the need to take me with him. I had no idea how long an hour really was, but it certainly seemed one hell of a long time to me. I was weighing up the impact that pooing in the flat in Benedict's absence, would have on his decision-making. I could poo in the kitchen, for it had lino on the floor, and wouldn't be too difficult to clean. Maybe he would think it was just 'puppy separation anxiety'? I wrote myself a mental list of pros and cons. After some deliberation, I decided that this just wouldn't be fair on Benedict. After all, he'd been nothing but nice to me and was already really stressed out by being on his own the whole time. He was so pleased to see me when he came back from his walks, that I just couldn't bear the thought of seeing his face so upset. I decided to reject my Machiavellian planning and let time do its work.

Benedict meanwhile, seemed to spend his whole time watching television, or staring at his communication box or computer screen. I wondered at first if he had no friends at all, and knew no other dogs who could come and cheer me up - but it gradually dawned on me how isolated Benedict really was - and all because of the lockdown. The lockdown rules prevented him from having anyone else in his flat. He had what he called 'Zoom parties', but they didn't seem like much of a party to me, just some faces and noise coming from his little communication box. You have to remember that I was just a pup, and I had now spent more than a third of my life cooped up in this flat. In contrast to Benedict, and notwithstanding the eerie lockdown, I was really happy and excited by everything and anything. Nevertheless, Dog time goes much faster than human time, and when you're a pup, the time drags so. I'm no physicist, and the theory of relativity passes me by, but what this means is that a dog day seems much longer to a dog than a human, and a puppy day is even longer. Your human brain probably won't be able to work that out, but I should know - trust me! I think I should explain a little more about the passage of time through my senses. I know exactly how long a day is, because the sun tells me so. But I feel it only fair to warn you that when I use the word 'second', 'minute', 'hour', 'week,' 'month', or 'year', that's either a wild guess, or because a human told me so!

After another two days of pointing and woofing, Benedict relented and it was time for my first official walk in the outside world!