The Road itself

Just as with the workshop on The Alchemist, where I wished that the sheep had a category of their own, I was looking here for a category titled “the dog.” But, finding none, I decided to talk about him as part of “the road.”

I’m still reading The Pilgrimage, and just last night came to the scene of Paulo’s final encounter with the dog. I thought it was absolutely fantastic! I had no doubt in my mind that this thing really happened, because every detail was 100% in line with everything that I know to be true about the behavior of dogs and their interactions with humans. In each encounter with the dog, this one included, Paulo used his eyes and his body posture, as well as loud and aggressive noises (shouting, growling), to fend off the dog’s advances. This, in real life, is the best technique, and really the only one that works with truly aggressive dogs. If you lower or avert your eyes, even for a second, if you drop the dog’s gaze, this is a sign of submission (fear), and the dog will most certainly attack. Similarly, if you turn to run, you’ve lost, because the dog is going to come at you full-force.

When Paulo became like a dog himself, when he lost all fear and hesitancy and actually attacked the dog – knocking the dog down and pinning it to the ground, biting and scratching and going for the dog’s throat as the primary target – he challenged the dog’s dominance and established himself as the Alpha. This is precisely what dogs do to one another. This behavior is encoded in their genetic makeup. The greatest mistake that we humans make when we encounter an aggressive dog is to act like a human, to try to fight this fight on human terms, which usually means trying to out-smart or out-run the dog, neither of which works. The dog does not care how “smart” you are; it cares only how much fear it can instill in you. If you try to avoid the fight, shying away from the dog’s challenge, either by using your wits or by trying to out-run the animal, the dog interprets this as cowardice or weakness, and it will surely go in for the kill.

What Paulo did in this scene – pinning the dog to the ground, getting on top of it, and going for the throat – is a technique that I often use with my own dogs, either to establish or re-establish my position of dominance – to assert that I am the pack leader, the Alpha. I don’t do this out of meanness, and although it may sound abusive, it is not. It is, rather, normal pack behavior. In a pack, when one dog jumps on another and a fight starts between them, the Alpha will jump in the middle of the fight and pin the aggressor to the ground, grabbing it by the throat, as a way of saying: “Okay, that’s enough! Break it up!”

On occasion, I have to do this with my own dogs, to keep their aggression in check and keep them from hurting one another. Two dogs will be playing and then the play isn’t play anymore – it is a fight – so I have to jump in the middle of the two dogs, growling louder than the two of them put together. Then I throw the aggressor to the ground, holding him/her down with my own body weight, and grab the dog by the throat with my hand (simulating a bite, my fingers become teeth). Meanwhile, I stare directly and threateningly into the dog’s eyes; as soon as the dog averts its gaze (a show of submission), I release. As I say, this may sound cruel to us, but it is only normal behavior within a pack, the leader’s way of keeping the other dogs in line and preventing injurious fights within the pack.

I have to say, though, that when I read this scene – picturing in my mind, Paulo fighting madly and wildly like a dog, becoming dog-like himself – I laughed. I could just picture the look of disbelief on that sheep herder’s face. And then when the sheep herder suggested that it must be something that Paulo had eaten that caused him to behave this way, I laughed even more, so hard that I cried. (The tears were actually very cathartic, because I too had been very tense, like Petrus, wondering what was going to be the outcome in Paulo’s inevitable final battle with this demon.) Then I thought for a moment that he was going to kill the dog, and (I couldn’t help it) my heart was siding with the dog. I thought, “Oh no! Surely not! Please don’t kill the dog. I’ll never be able to forgive you.” But, of course, Paulo was stronger than that. That’s what ordinary cowards do – kill the animal, although the animal itself is just another innocent victim. Paulo was strong enough to release the dog from the grip of the demons that were inflicting it.

All in all, I think this is one of the most fabulous scenes I have ever encountered in literature! Not only because it was so very realistic, right down to the most minute detail, but because it is so profound in terms of the deep symbolic meaning it carries.

We all have to face our demons at some time or another, and if we attempt to avert this encounter, if we try to avoid entering into this fight, our demons will indeed pursue us for the rest of our lives. Fear – this is the key element – our mastery over our own fear. As Paulo finally realized, he was bigger and stronger than the dog that was trying to attack him. We are always bigger and stronger than our own demons because our demons come from within us – how could they be bigger or stronger then we are? We created them! Likewise, we have to be courageous enough to fight back with all the viciousness of an animal. It isn’t enough to try to out-smart them or out-run them – we must face them head on and battle them on their own terms, even if this makes us look, momentarily, insane. Whatever we do, we must not back down from the fight.

Thank you, Paulo, for one of the best and most enjoyable scenes I have ever read. I absolutely loved it!

Sincerely,
Savita

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