DOWN HOME: Puppies & daughters follow their passion

Posted: 8/17/07

DOWN HOME:
Puppies & daughters follow their passion

Have you digested any good books this summer?

Our dog, Topanga, has. Literally. Unfortunately, she’s not any smarter or more learned. But she did look sort of full there for awhile.

Every now and then, I read a really good book that gives me plenty to “chew” on. And I totally ingest the very best books. Absorb them. They become part of me.

Somehow, I think Topanga is more shallow than I. She only chewed on the cover and the corners of a few pages. Also, she hasn’t given any indication the book affected her life substantially.

Well, now, I take that back. She can’t go into Molly’s bedroom anymore.

That’s where Topanga’s involvement with the book occurred.

Molly’s a bookaholic. Since she learned to read, she’s kept her nose in a book at least part of almost every day. She’s focusing on literature at Baylor University. In fact, one program in her major field of study requires her to read about a gazillion volumes from a list of the greatest books ever written. And she loves it.

So, when Molly headed off to work at Pine Cove, a Christian camp in East Texas, this summer, her room looked like a book bomb went off. Books were everywhere—strewn on the bed and dresser, stacked on the night stand and bookcase. And, of course, all over the floor.

That’s where Topanga found her book, a novel Molly first read in high school. Personally, I’ll always believe she went in there looking for shoelaces, her current chomping fetish of choice. But she apparently enjoyed Molly’s book, if you can tell a canine’s book-appreciation by a cover.

Topanga isn’t the first dog in our household to bite her way into Molly’s domain. Her predecessor, Betsy, once infamously chewed some fingers off of Molly’s favorite doll, Pink Baby, who remains a family treasure, though eternally maimed.

Fortuitously, nobody’s assigning blame. Although we’re working on Topanga’s penchant for chewing things, we realize a puppy is a puppy, and puppies explore the world first with their teeth and tongue. And we’re actually encouraging Molly (at least the reading, if not the leaving-everything-on-the-bedroom-floor part). She’s a curious young woman, and she explores the world with her eyes, through the pages of books and newspapers and magazines and Internet websites. That’s one of the things I’ve always admired about her—insatiable curiousity.

Even though it sometimes puts them at odds, small dogs and young women tend to do what comes naturally. They’re likely to devour books, either with their teeth or their eyes.

So, what do you devour, digest, explore? Passion defines a person. What you find irresistable says much about who you are.

–Marv Knox