We Need to Talk: A Meeting Has Been Called

Every now and again, I get this uneasy feeling that I’m about to have a conversation I didn’t schedule. There will be no warning, no email requesting a meeting and certainly no indication of what the agenda might be. I simply look across the room and find Jackie sitting like this, staring directly at me with the unmistakable expression of someone who has reviewed my recent performance and found several areas requiring improvement.

I’ve learned not to ask too many questions. With Jackie, it’s generally better to wait until management has decided how the meeting will proceed.

There Is Apparently a Problem

I’m guessing it’s food related. With Jackie, there’s a reasonably good chance that dinner was too early, too late, insufficient in quantity or somehow failed to meet the standards established during previous negotiations.

There is also the possibility that the temperature of the house is unacceptable, her preferred chair has been disturbed or I’ve committed some other offence that hasn’t yet been brought to my attention. Whatever it is, she’s prepared, and judging by that face, she has documentation.

That isn’t a dog hoping you’ll drop a piece of cheese. That’s someone waiting patiently for you to finish talking so she can explain why you’re wrong.

Jackie Has Always Been Management

Some dogs live in your house, but Jackie has always given me the impression that I live in hers. She knows the routines, knows where everything belongs and seems particularly interested in ensuring that I understand the schedule.

Meals happen at certain times, walks have expectations attached to them and apparently there are household policies I agreed to at some point without reading the paperwork. She’s a handful, but not in the way people sometimes mean when they say that about a dog.

Jackie is a handful because she’s a character. She has opinions, expectations and an uncanny ability to communicate all of them without saying a word. Sometimes it’s a look, sometimes it’s a sigh, and sometimes she sits in a chair like this and waits for you to realize that you’ve been called into a meeting.

I Still Don’t Know What I Did

I’ve replayed the day in my head. Food was served, water was available and the house appeared to be within acceptable temperature parameters. Nothing obvious had happened that would warrant disciplinary action, although experience has taught me that this doesn’t necessarily mean I’m innocent.

Jackie maintains records considerably more detailed than mine. There may have been an infraction several hours earlier that I have completely forgotten but which remains very much an active file in her department.

Eventually, I did what any sensible person living under the supervision of a hound would do. I apologized, and while I wasn’t entirely sure what for, after years of living with Jackie I’ve discovered that’s often the most efficient approach.

The meeting was subsequently adjourned. I remain on probation.

Life With Jackie

These are the moments I love most about living with dogs. Not necessarily the big adventures or the perfectly posed photographs, but the tiny everyday exchanges where somehow, without speaking the same language, you know exactly what they’re saying.

During the day, Jackie can sit in that chair and look at me as though I’m an employee who’s been called in to explain a disappointing quarterly report. A few hours later, apparently exhausted from the burden of supervising me, she’ll be curled up in my bed amongst the pillows and blankets without the slightest concern that there may have been another intended occupant.

And maybe that’s Jackie in two photographs. One minute she’s management, watching everything I do and making it quite clear when my performance isn’t meeting expectations. The next she’s sound asleep in my bed, completely secure in the knowledge that this is her home and everything in it, including me, is pretty much hers.

After all these years, I’ve learned my place. She has the chair, she has the bed and she has the house.

Apparently, I have the bills.

And I wouldn’t change a damn thing about her.