Unconditional (Or Falling In Love Like A Dog)

 

     A Facebook friend of mine, a certified animal lover as he owns several dogs, cats, hamsters, birds and fish, is mourning the death of his pet rabbit. He wrote a lengthy essay about it. A few posts from his post of his rabbit's grave, I’m seeing a funeral for a recently deceased beagle, and I scroll down a bit more and I saw a woman (both posts from a Facebook group of Filipino beagle owners) losing lots of sleep and frantically asking for help for his sick beagle.

     This I why it took me so long to decide to have another dog, you get attached to it, and it becomes emotionally burdensome when it gets sick—or die. You see, dogs offer you selfless love, the kind of love that doesn’t ask if they’re getting anything in return before they love you and surrender themselves to you. They don’t ask questions like “Would this person give me the same amount of love I’d be giving him?” or “What if this person rejects me eventually and rehomes me?” or “What if this person brings me endless sufferings like kicking me every day or starving me or not sending me to a doctor when I get sick?” A person allegedly in love, even before doing the simplest and smallest things, for their beloved, ask questions like “Do I get a kiss when I buy this person a gift or will I just get laughs and insults?”  No, you don’t ask questions like that because the goal is doing what you think will make the person you love happy. You just buy the gift and give it.  

     Once you take a dog home, it will start giving you unconditional love, no doubts and questions emanating from them, no thinking about themselves anymore, it will all be about you, the person they will love, they’re no poseurs when it comes to love, and they won’t change their mind about loving you. You kick them in your anger and leave and they’d be right there at the door, waiting for you so they could lick you and hug you. If they get hurt via loving you, then, that for them comes with the territories of love, for love’s not a surefire ticket to happiness, instead, it’s a mission to making another person happy— so no matter what you do, you get attached to it and give it love and care more than what you give your girlfriend or spouse.

     You fall in love and your mind gets filled with fears for all the possible and future pain, disappointments, rejections, and heartaches it will bring you before you can express it, then that’s not love, that’s self-preservation.

     Imagine if everyone falls in love like a dog.