Somatic Field Reports — Special Edition #5. Filed from the Canine Division, cool spot, main floor. The first report submitted by the control group, who has been in the room the entire time and has, until now, declined to comment.
by Jod(y)ie
I have been present for all of it.
I was the Sergeant at Arms at the hearing. I held the alternate manual in the hallway. I read the service records over the technician’s shoulder, in my reading glasses, which I require only for the small print. I have sat in every panel of this publication, at the edge of the frame, saying nothing — because no one asks the control group, and the control group does not volunteer.
Someone has now asked. So. A report.
What I Have Observed
The humans in this house carry something I have never once detected on a dog.
I have a functioning nose. I can find a dropped pill under the stove and a rabbit that left the yard on Tuesday. I have never, in my life, smelled shame. It is not on any animal I have met. It appears to be installed only in humans, and only by other humans, and once installed it seems to weigh a great deal — because they move differently under it. Bracing. Apologizing. Going quiet in exactly the places where a healthy creature would simply make a sound.
They apologize for accurate readings. This is the part I cannot file correctly. My human will notice a true thing — a fear, a limit, a no — and then say sorry, to no one, for the noticing. I have watched her do it for years. I do not have a word for it. Where I come from, an accurate reading is just the weather. You report it and you move on.
On the Matter of the Growl
I growl when I mean it. I have never once been made to regret it.
When I growl, my human steps back and says thank you. Then the thing I growled about goes away. This is the entire system. It has worked flawlessly my whole life, and I recommend it without reservation.
I have since learned — from the records, which I read — that the humans were not offered this arrangement. They were corrected for their growls. Punished for the warning. And so they learned to stop warning, which any instrument will tell you does not remove the danger; it only removes the light on the dashboard. I find this nearly impossible to report without editorializing, so I will note it plainly and rest my paw on the file: they took the one honest signal the animal had, and taught it to go dark. Then they were startled by what came out of the dark.
I would never. But I was also never asked to.
On the Airplanes
My human folds paper into birds and throws them at the sky.
They are addressed to a Committee. I have watched four of them go up. None have come back. She folds another and sets it on the table to wait for a clear night, and I keep her company, because that is my post.
I do not have a committee. I have never filed a memo, submitted a case, or awaited a finding — and I want to be precise about why. No case was ever opened against me. Nothing was entered into a record demanding I account for how I arrived. I was permitted to simply be the reading, from the beginning, with no appeal pending, because there was no charge. The absence of that paperwork is the whole of my condition. It is also, I have come to understand, the only thing that separates me from everyone else in this house.
The Part Where I Stop Kidding (Briefly)
I should correct something, because the humans keep saying it, and it is wrong.
They call me a good dog. Easy. Lucky. Special. They say it the way you would describe a happy accident — as if I came out different, as if calibration were a temperament some dogs are simply born holding.
I am not the exception. I am the control group. That is a different thing, and the difference is the entire point of this series.
I am not better-tempered than the sealed ones. I am not stronger, or wiser, or more evolved. I am un-adjusted. Nothing was installed over me. No mat, no manual, no correction reached in during the years when the settings get written. I warned when I meant to and rested when I was safe, and I was met, every time, with thank you and the cool spot on the floor. This is what an instrument reads like when it is simply left alone.
The human keeps a dictionary. I found my entry in it, written in her hand and left open on the table where a dog could see: “Nala — see: what you were, before.” I did not know how to feel about being a definition. I lay down on it. It seemed like the correct response.
Because here is what the entry means, and what the sealed ones need told: they were never defective. They were the same animal I am. Every one of them arrived exactly like this — warning freely, resting easily — and then someone with a manual and the very best intentions reached in, turned the volume down, and called the quiet a personality. I am not proof that some creatures are lucky. I am proof that the defect was never in the creature. It was in the reaching.
The evidence has been lying on the cool spot the entire time. Nobody looked, because the evidence does not talk. So — for the record, once — the evidence is talking.
Filed from the cool spot, Canine Division. No committee, no appeal, nothing pending; the case against me was never opened. The squirrel has departed and I have stood down. My human is folding another bird for the sky. I have nowhere I would rather be than here, at my post, keeping the finest instrument in the house company while she finishes reading her own records. She is nearly to the good part. I can smell it.
Continue the Field Reports
This is part of the Somatic Field Reports: Special Editions — a six-part season on the body that keeps running the show without asking permission. They stand alone, but they read best in order.
- Start here: The Mat Is Not a Gene — where the season opens.
- ← Previous: The Thermostat Wars
- Next →: The Committee Responds
- Related: The Smoke Detector Is Not the Fire — on the difference between the alarm and the danger.
Sources & lineage
The jokes are the dog’s; the behavioral science underneath them is real, and it’s all built on the same principle Nala lives by — that the honest signal is information, not a crime, and the humane response is to listen rather than punish.
- Donaldson, J. (2005). The Culture Clash (2nd ed.). James & Kenneth. — The book that retired the myth of the guilty, shame-faced dog. Nala has read it. She agrees.
- Dunbar, I. (n.d.). Reward-based training resources. Dog Star Daily & the Dunbar Academy. — The whole “I growl, she says thank you” arrangement, made into a training philosophy that does no harm.
- Porges, S. W. (2011). The Polyvagal Theory. Norton. Available via the Polyvagal Institute. — For why a warning taught to go dark doesn’t remove the danger — only the light on the dashboard.
The committee accepts public comment below. All submissions are reviewed by the dog.