Practicing Peacekeeping

Despite a lifelong discomfort with loud voices and cursing, Rowdy has adopted an admirable response when he hears them.

No one celebrates the final play of the Super Bowl with greater gratitude than my gentle golden, who holds his breath, just a little, through the entirety of the NFL season. But swear words now invoke the superpower of his therapy dog spirit.

When he senses too-high tension in the tv room, Rowdy will launch a crusade for calmness, approaching the overly fervent fan with ears slightly dropped, tail slowly ticking back and forth as he gauges the proper proximity needed to successfully complete his mission.

A little scratching of that perfect spot behind a dog’s ears restores some semblance of reason to even the most passionate accusations of poor play and outrageous officiating.

Rowdy’s peacekeeping pursuits are not confined to the perimeter of Four Sticks, however.

We recently had a girl start her day with a major tantrum in the entry way of the school building. I’ve heard a few of these rants over the years, but this was top shelf vituperation, a full-on verbal assault of the perceived violation of her rights as a student, the injustices forced upon her at the school, including the totally intolerable situation of her having to be in the same room as another student she deemed despicable. It was a vitriolic tirade, born of incredible pain and sadness, punctuated with a remarkable number of F bombs.

As with many things in life, I believe there’s a time and a place for the F word, and I appreciate its judicious use. But 15 minutes of the tirade seemed plenty to satisfy a need to vent, so I left Rowdy in the office and walked into the hallway, not to counsel, just to offer a little moral support for the teacher who’d been monitoring the meltdown, and because sometimes the mere presence of a second, silent adult can nudge the emotional thermometer out of the red zone.

I said nothing, just stood quietly, and the student didn’t acknowledge me except to slip into her diatribe that she didn’t “need no fuckin’ dog.”

Message received.

Loud and clear.

But Rowdy begged to differ. The words had barely left her lips before he came around the corner, somehow knowing he was needed.

He walked past me, past the teacher, and very gently approached the student crouched in the corner. He touched her knee with his nose, and she reached for his head. He stepped a little closer, touched her just softly enough to make sure she knew he was there, and she started scratching his head, talking just a little quieter, just a little slower.

He stood with her, demanding nothing, only offering quiet connection.

After a minute or two Rowdy recognized that his work was done. He moved over to me, we returned to our office, where he accepted a well-earned treat and curled up on his bed to wait for his call to Study Hall.

He didn’t solve her problem. But within a few minutes she calmed enough to move out of the hallway and into a study space.

Unlike some of the other students, she doesn’t clamor for his attention when she sees him. But when he makes his rounds around the room at the start of Study Hall, sometimes she scratches his head, just a little, and talks to him, just a little, and smiles at him, just a little.

Just enough to keep her at peace.

Just enough to keep him in shape for Sundays in September, with their return of the purple jerseys.

Skol Vikes!