Utility or Futility?

As you may remember from my previous ramblings, i love to chase my tail.  If i’m bored, and Molly doesn’t feel like playing or i can’t torment the cat, i can spend minutes running in circles trying to pull in the big puff-of-fluff in front of me…or behind me…which is it?!  On a good day, with the wind at my back, i can get in five or six spins. Once, on a Tuesday i think, i am certain i made a full ten rotations before tripping over one of my feet and tumbling to the ground. Have i mentioned how i fall down a lot?

Round and round and round and down, round and round and round and down.  Am i a rat?

No. Sometimes, i achieve the perfect combination of speed and agility, and i catch my own tail!  That’s right, this guy, all 130-plus puppy pounds of him, strikes like lightning and latches on to the evasive beast.  

At the height of my triumph, i feel unstoppable.  Mini wave in celebration of me because i have risen to the top of my game.  What could possibly be better than this? What should i do next? Surely i should stop to bask in the glory of my accomplishment?

So i pause for a moment, tail in cheek, and realize i am standing in the living room with my tail in my mouth. It is at that time i ask myself a series of pertinent questions:  What am i doing this for? Why am i running around and around and around and down? Why do i subject myself to a seemingly useless endeavor? Is there any utility to my game?

The answer is, there is!  Despite what you may have been lead to believe through memes or folklore, chasing one’s tail is not a lesson in futility. Unless you make it one.

You see, in the middle of my tail spin, i am alive.  My heart is pounding, my legs are moving, and i don’t have a care in the world. My eyes are on the prize (sort of….the whole process is very dizzy-ing), and i have every intention of winning. I am doing it!  

If i catch my tail, awesome, i rule the day and my last thirty seconds had meaning.  However, if i don’t get a piece of the hair of the dog who bit me, that’s ok too. I am not about having to be the best all the time, i am about be-ing in general…about enjoying the ride.  i’m a dog, i love life, and i have flaws.  i’m perfect. imperfect. Just. Like. You.