"Equality" by Rev. Thomas Schade

[Memos from Rev. Barbara Merritt and Rev. Tom Schade]

M I N I S T E R ‘ S   M E M O
“Equality”
When I got a dog last fall, I made a pledge that I would not be one of those
ministers who talked about his dog all the time. You know, the one who
illustrates his sermons with heartwarming anecdotes about Fido, or who sees
a parable of the human condition in Rover’s scratching and sniffing. The
worst of all is the minister who sees in his dog’s unwavering loyalty an
analog to God’s unconditional love. After all, to see God in a creature who
will chase and retrieve the same ball hundreds of times with no loss of
enthusiasm seems to have the relationship backwards.

Nevertheless, having a dog is a learning experience, and so, without
becoming one of those ministers, I have some insights to pass along.

We take Pepe to what used to be called Obedience School. These days, things
have new names. Pepe is enrolled in a Puppy Development Program at the local
Canine Compatibility Center. (Their slogan, and I kid you not is “At the
Canine Compatibility Center, Sit Happens.”)

So every two weeks, we go to the Canine Compatibility Center campus, in the
basement below a local pet supply store, for a one-hour training session.

It was at the Puppy Evaluation session at the very beginning of the Puppy
Development Program that I received the important message from the Universe
that has caused me to break my no-dog-story-pledge with this memo.

The instructor, a very skilled and personable guy who trains dogs to work
with police departments, interviewed us about our home life with Pepe as we
sat on folding chairs in the basement. All around us were crates filled with
dogs, each watching us through the door with bemusement. A few dogs wondered
freely through the room, especially a pug named Riley, who looked like he
should have been smoking a short cigar and wearing a battered fedora.

The trainer looked at us and said, “Your dog does not understand equality.”

What?

Your dog is a pack animal, and to her, other animals are either dominant to
her or subordinate to her, but she doesn’t understand anybody being equal to
her. She doesn’t understand equality. I cannot quote him exactly, because my
mind had gone into shock.

Now, I knew this intellectually. After all, I had watched the Dog Whisperer
on the National Geographic Channel and had read the Cliff Notes summary of
Thomas Hobbes as an undergraduate. I had read articles about Paolo Friere’s
Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
I couldn’t speak, but inside, I was reeling.

I wanted to say, “Help me out here. I am a middle-aged, middle-class,
straight, white guy, a liberal and, God help me, a Unitarian Universalist
minister. My dog may not understand equality, but it is near the top of my
list of desired values. My goal is equality, with everybody and everything.
I try to see every way that I assume a position of superiority and privilege
and get out of it. When I don’t see the ways that I think that I am entitled
to the upper hand, and it is pointed out, I am embarrassed and ashamed. My
reproach to myself is that I am insufficiently sensitive to inequality, and
insincere in my efforts to foster it.

And now, you want me to push this little cute puppy off the couch, even
though there is plenty of room for her, and she really wants to sit up next
to me, just to prove that I am the big dog and she is the little dog? That
when we go for a walk, that I shouldn’t let her just wander at her own pace,
smelling whatever she likes, for as long as she wants, just because the
leader of the pack leads and the followers follow. That she can’t just eat
whenever she wants because the leader of pack eats first and then lets the
other dogs eat when it convenient to him? That I shouldn’t let her grab the
leash in her mouth and lead me around when we are out walking?

Well, this is quite an adjustment for me.

I was helped by one thing that the trainer said at the last session. The
question had come up about why is was OK to dogs to nip and bite each other
while playing with each other, but not when playing with people. The answer
was simple: Because they are dogs and we are human beings.

Oh.

Not only do I learn something new everyday, but everyday I remember
something old I had forgotten.
                                    Tom

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