Detour.

I have tried very hard to convince myself that Bole’s “amazing escape acts” were done out of ignorance and not out of defiance. However I have found myself with infallible proof against my dearest hopes.

 A few days ago I learned that I had not been kept as “in the loop” as I had previously thought. I learned that not only had Bole escaped during our last furlough, but that he had actually killed over twenty chickens. He had been caught escaping the yard in Kang numerous times and what’s more, when he was caught he and they called him out on it, he didn’t even look back to see who was calling him.

How could they?!? My parents had actually conspired to keep me in the dark! There are no words for this. What did they hope to spare me? Did they actually think that I wouldn’t find out?! Or was it that they thought that he would “shape up” after we moved. This is betrayal! This meant that when I’d asked all those times if Uncle John had said anything about him, that they had lied to me. It means that they sat down and talked about it and decided willfully to hide the truth from me, and to deceive me!

I will not have it. Any of it! That dog will either learn to live by the rules, or he will not live as my pet. I cannot have an insubordinate guard dog! “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” He can learn, or choose not to. But this I know; if he does not learn I will punish him most cruelly.

Even today I second guessed the notion that he was indeed evil. How cute he looks. He sits there where we chained him to keep him bound, his pleading eyes asking, “wont you let me off so that I can play with you?” all day he pleaded like this. Every time I left the yard his piteous yips and howls came not far after. And every time I returned he cried and wagged his tail so hard that his entire body shook. I can’t believe that I was actually suckered into it! I let him off. He had broken my resolve. He ran and played with Buster.  But the very moment that I turned my back! IN BROAD DAY LIGHT! HE LEFT!

I can no longer deny it even to myself—my dog is evil, a conniving, and designing, insubordinate, unreliable, untrustworthy, lusting, greedy, unfaithful cur! And I will personally see to it that he knows the definition of “a swift beating” upon his return.