Reality Matters_ 19 Writers Come Clean About the Shows We Can't Stop Watching - Anna David [25]
At the Dog Psychology Center, Cesar’s three-step training process is paramount: “Exercise, discipline, then affection.” It’s really that simple.
Exercise: Run the shit out of them until they’re too tired to do anything but lie down.
Discipline: When they want to lie down, you don’t let them, because you must show them you are in charge.
Affection: When they have ceded to your demands—because you know what is best, because you will protect them, because you will keep them safe—you may pet them and give them a treat.
And then they will never leave you and they will never be hurt.
Daddy absorbed this lesson at the highest level—in Scientology, he would be the one who rose to the utmost apex of Thetans—and now he is in charge. But he is a peaceful, solemn charge, his (dare I say?) hangdog expression almost John Wayneish in its authority, his force to be used sparingly and only when absolutely necessary. He is the drill sergeant everyone respects. He is Cesar’s consigliere.
Oh, what fun they have at the Dog Psychology Center. Gladwell, in his piece, calls it “the most peaceful prison yard in all of California,” but that’s selling it short. It’s one big warm platonic orgy of ass-sniffing, ball-chasing, sun-basking, and flea-scratching. Here there are no insecurities, no biting, no fear, no aggression. Everyone is lolling around in the submissive position. Inside these walls, every day is a vacation in the Caymans, punctuated by occasional public excretion. It is Doggie Utopia. It is Eden. It is the chosen place the rest of us have foolishly forsaken.
When Cesar brings Fluffy here, the angry mean nasty nipping Fluffy, the same thing happens every damn time. Fluffy, who was just seen ripping the larynx out of a mailman, proceeds slowly, precariously, full of worry and fright…and then, within seconds, Fluffy is lying around and playing with the rest of the dogs. Fluffy is not hiding and then pouncing. Fluffy is walking with perfect, Westminster-quality posture, sharing the tennis ball with other dogs, tanning, licking everything in sight. It is wordless and beautiful. What happened? What did Cesar put in the water over there? How are they communicating? How is this happening?
Only Cesar and Daddy know. They hold the keys to the Puppy Elysian Fields. It is their biodome. All are safe.
Eventually, Sid killed Nancy, because that was the logical answer, really, to every question they’d been asking each other. Thank God Jill’s Sid didn’t kill her. But one Saturday morning I got a call saying it was over, that he’d just come home after dinner one night and told her he was tired, that he couldn’t do it anymore. Within ten hours my parents were on a plane to Oakland; within sixteen Jill was in the backseat of her car as my dad, Daddy, drove her back to Mattoon. She had no friends there. She had no job. She had no money. She had no place else to go. While Jill was being a spitfire and fighting and growling and loving, she was setting up a family life in a more intricate, and more devoted, way than I ever had. I’d always had an escape route. She never did. When it all blew up, there was nothing left. She had created order out of chaos, only to learn that it all turned into chaos anyway. It always does.
She’s at home now, as I type this—resting, crying, figuring out what’s next. I am still thousands of miles away. I am playing it safe. I have played it safe. I have order. I have life in a calm, submissive position.
I want to be there for them, for her, all the time. I want to give my parents, my fiancée, any family of my own a safe cocoon, a biodome, a place where they’re defended from those who would do them harm, including themselves. I want to discipline them not because they are out of line but because the world’s discipline will be so much harder. I want there to be order. I want to live in one place, with my family, and be able to control