It might have been the “one-step-closer-to-being-empty-nesters” panic that caused my parents to adopt a wide-eyed, sweet-hearted puppy a mere two weeks after I left for school. But whatever the cause, adopt a puppy they did. When I returned home for Winter Break, I arrived just in time to take the new dog, Brogen, on her first trip to the dog park.
I arrived at the park a bit wide-eyed myself, expecting dog-accessible slides and swings and all sorts of park equipment. However, no such place existed. The dog park I had so magically envisioned was nothing but fenced-in gravel.
It was fitting that my trip to the dog park coincided perfectly with the end of my first semester at college. Looking at the way the aged, experienced dogs acted as ringleaders, I conjured up a laundry list of analogies comparing this first trip to a catalogued first day of school. As Brogen looked on, naïve and nervous, I went back to my most recent “first day” experience: the beginning of this past semester.
The similarities were certainly there. Spend enough time at the dog park and you start to pick up on a spectrum of personalities. Some dogs sit and observe, others run and nip and growl happily, making sure others know they’re there. As I watch the different groups mix and mingle, I find myself at one of the University’s notorious social haunts — Rugby Road, the Corner, Wertland Street — where similar goings-on occur.
Upon entering college, I was under the misguided impression that everyone would be overwhelmingly social, constantly asking other people to join their outings and adventures. While for the most part I have found this to be true, I’ve also been surprised by the amount of people who aren’t open to mixing social groups, as “high school” as this may sound. Why anyone would so blatantly cut themselves off from meeting new people had always been a mystery to me — and the topic of many late-night debriefing sessions with my roommate. While observing at the dog park, I came to find a very simple explanation: some dogs just play differently than others.
At such a unique place, it’s worth observing not only the dogs but also their owners. Eavesdrop on any given conversation — I’m guilty, I’ll admit — and you very quickly get a taste for the ins-and-outs of dog park politics. They parallel a stereotypical, high school social mentality, which carries itself over into college more than I expected. Between listening to the back-and-forth between dog “handlers" — cue long, drawn-out vowels and elitist tone — and reminiscing on previously mentioned “debriefing” sessions with my roommate, one thing became clear: politics of this sort is for the birds… or in this case, the dogs.
Though the dog park reminded me of the trivial social politics we experience in a college setting, it also made me think of of a more optimistic lesson I’ve learned. Upon entering the dog park, one is greeted with a sign listing 21 rules. Number one is an age restriction: any dog has to be at least four months old before coming to the park. For a puppy, reaching the four-month mark is worthy of celebration. In college, it’s not so different — I’ve quickly found that everything and anything can be turned into an occasion.
This past October, a good friend of mine was lamenting the fact that her birthday fell over Fall Break, when most of her friends would be out of town. In response, a handful of friends and I launched what would quickly become a tradition among us: the Firthday, or fake birthday. A few days before one’s birthday, we all go out to dinner and celebrate as if it was the real day. After such a turbulent semester, I’ve come to see that small milestones — four-month dog-anniversaries, fake birthdays — are always cause for celebration.
While standing with Brogen in the dog park, I thought of the heartbreak, criticism and back-and-forth we’ve experienced as a school and community this past semester. Such incidental knocks, however, are unavoidable. Calamity rarely ceases, but I don’t view that as an entirely bleak concept. Aspects of our community that make us uncomfortable should serve as reason to change rather than complain, and we can always find reasons to celebrate — à la Firthdays. In my first-year mind, one idea was solidified after an oh-so-simple trip to the dog park: you have to keep going, no matter how ruff life might become.
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