My pup Misha reminds me of a lot of the guys I dated and thankfully never married—a sweet heart with a bad-boy edge that keeps you guessing. While his snuggle factor convinced me to bring him home even though I hadn’t been looking for a puppy, he’s become stingier with his affection, although he does like to burrow in close to me most nights.
His newfound unpredictability and aloofness extend to playtime. He loves his Whistler ball, but he views fetch as an equal opportunity activity in which I get to retrieve the ball almost as much as he does. He’ll run after it most of the time, but if another dog comes along or his sister and partner-in-crime decides that they should run up a ridge, he’ll abandon his ball and keep going. I’m the one who has to find it. Even when not distracted, he’ll drop the ball 15 to 20 feet from me. That’s his idea bringing it back, and no amount of persuasion will convince him to bring it closer.
Don’t get me wrong. Misha loves to be told that he’s a good boy. His little ears flatten against the side of his head, and he will often double blink at a compliment. But the lure of doing whatever he pleases whenever he pleases usually proves the greater draw. So, while he will obey some of the time, two and a half years in, that remains a hit-and-miss affair, especially if he is on hunting mode.
The other night, I was awakened from a lovely sleep, which does not come often enough, by barking that sounded way too familiar. With a colorful exclamation I won’t repeat here, I threw on my sweatshirt robe, grabbed a flashlight, and slipped into the gardening clogs that live on the backsteps.
“Misha,” I called in hushed tones. “Come!”
No response.
I tried again, and again, and again, the commands uttered through increasingly clenched teeth. Shining the light along the lava rock that rises as high as my house, I spotted Misha along the rusty cattle fencing that blends so well with the lava. Despite my urging, he continued to stand utterly still.
“Don’t make me come get you,” I said, my tone still low and clipped. The or-else lingered in the air, with absolutely no effect.
Misha may not have responded, but as I closed in on the rocks, the raccoon that had captured Misha’s rapt attention descended from a tree just two feet away and disappeared into the neighbor’s yard. As much as I had anticipated seeing him, the sight filled me with dread. Cute but deadly, I thought. That saying was adorable and funny when my friend’s six-year-old used it as the tagline for his computer-generated rock band called Killer Hamsters, but it’s less appealing when it refers to an animal your pup with selective hearing has treed.
While this kind of unpredictability is not exactly what you want in a dog or a mate, it works great in a book since it keeps readers engaged.
As I mentioned in a recent post, predictability in books is boring. With nonfiction, you want the case you’re making to grab your readers’ attention. That means your premise or your topic can’t be obvious. With fiction or narrative nonfiction, you want the people you’re writing about to be surprising. That doesn’t mean piling on unrealistic character traits but rather fully developing them as recognizable people and then showing how they react to unexpected and unexpectedly challenging situations. During that journey, unpredictability will keep your readers turning page after page.
If your dogs teach you about writing, I’d love to know how. Until then, have fun adding unpredictability to your pages.
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