dog-matism, a rare breed of

A very nice dog lives in the shortcut on the way to my house. A very nice woman, I recently found out, feeds the dog. I thought the dog belonged to the people living in the hovel alongside there. He’s obviously looked after, and quite the people dog. He’s super tail-wagging friendly, with passersby large and small. And cats.



The woman said the dog was not hers or theirs, but, to my surprise, a stray. She lives on the other side of the neighborhood, but she stops by to bring him food every morning. She’s made several attempts to take him home with her, but the dog is strangely unwilling… to stray.

Sometimes she cooks for him. The hovel-dwellers aren’t crazy about it.



But I am. I’m aware now of what a Greek mentality I’ve had to adopt just to walk through that shortcut on a regular basis. I no longer need a handwritten sign on a shoebox top or a cardboard box to tell me what it means to be civilized.