Bo Peep II
and the Universal Law of Karma

by Darby Mitchell

conclusion

But he took a chance, announced the runaway Bo Peep II on the air, and I had no more’n put the phone down but it rang, and it was the woman who had the dog. What had happened was that Beatrice went up to this stranger’s door, barked like she was giving away something free and valuable, listened to see if the people were going to come to the door, then ran off down the street, leaving Bo Peep II to her new home. The woman says they — she and her husband — saw Beatrice looking behind her as she ran off — smiling. Keeshonds smile.

I think Beatrice realized that even the most elaborate plan to get rid of her daughter wasn’t going to work, because she didn’t do it again — probably didn’t have the heart to do it again, which meant that not only was she stuck with the dog Bo Peep, but so were we stuck. And she was a dog, if you know what I mean.

But physically Bea’s daughter was a pretty good specimen, so when she was old enough, I had both Beatrice and Bo Peep II bred. This was Beatrice’s last litter. I didn’t want to wear her out.

Beatrice prepared in the usual way, got all motherly and fussy, made a nest, got it just so, invited the girls over for a shower — knew what to do, and did it: Whammo! Seven fine puppies. Bo Peep, a few days later, simply started dropping her pups as she walked. Beatrice had her pups in one angle of the A-frame, Bo Peep had the opposite angle.

When I got Bo peep all settled in with her nesting, Bea, who, as I say, was a few days ahead and already settled, took to sneaking across the living room, where, with Bo Peep still busy with labor, she snuggled one new born puppy after another in her mouth, slunk across the living room, and nestled those brand new orphan puppies in with her own litter so nobody -like Bo Peep — would notice.

By the time Bea had those pups all in her nest, Bo Peep had got done laboring, and was look’n around for the prize. And when that Bo Peep II heard them pups mewling from the other angle beneath the A-frame roof, she, a wee bit like one frazzled very bitchy wet hen, stalked across that room and one by one took each of Beatrice’s new orphan puppies in her mouth — same as her mother had done but goin’ the other way — and haughtily bore them back across the room to her nest. Every single one of the pups now belonged to Bo Peep.

Bea just watched. I suppose she was too ashamed to admit to anything other than that those new-born puppies had waddled their way blindly across the room by theirselves. But now she had time to think. And slowly, calculatingly, Beatrice hatched a plan.

The next day, I let both mothers out. They traipsed off happily while I thought there was nothing hard about this racket at all.

Time passed. And more time passed. And then more time passed. Those dogs didn’t come back. I was the dupe. I became frantic. And then I started wringing my hands.

The hours lapsed. Late afternoon come on. Finally, figuring the absolutely asleep pups were not so much asleep as dead, I rummaged up an eye dropper and tried dripping milk, drop by drop, into the clenched mouths of somnolent new-born puppies.

By dinner time they were scruffy and stiff with spilled and sour milk. I began wiping them down with warm water. But it was hopeless. Nothing I did made those puppies want to live. They didn’t even notice me. The only thing I got accomplished was to give half Bea back half the double litter that Bo Peep II had gathered to herself.

Finally, by nightfall, I heard the dogs out on the deck. I opened the door, but only Bo Peep barged in, going directly to her pups, and in thirty seconds or so had them up, licked and nursing. I went looking for Beatrice, who was hiding out under the deck — which is where she went when she was in labor with her first pups and didn’t know what was happening to her.

Bea was obviously guilty of attempted daughter-cide. I made her come inside, and she slunk across to her pups while Bo Peep glared at her from the opposite angle. After that, the game was over. Beatrice had lost all authority with her daughter.

But even though Bo Peep become, in time, an adequate mother — though she was always more like a la-dee-da slumming society tramp — she had not improved in motherly attitude, in compassion, or patience. She definitely was a bitch. That’s when she began nipping at her mother. Then she nipped at my son. She nipped at me, too, but only once.

Now I am finally come on a second come-around to the point of my story, which is Bo Peep II and the Universal Law of Karma.

Lovers of dogs have little doubt that dogs have souls. Now I know that dog lovers can’t prove that a dog has or is a soul, anymore than we can prove that a person has or is a soul. After all, what sign would we look for in a dog that would tell us whether or not it had a soul?

Beatrice had humor — gentle humor, for the most part. She and Bo Peep had the emotions that people have, though Bea’s emotions ranged from 1 to 100, whereas Bo Peep’s went from 1 to maybe a minus three — similar to an ex-con drill sergeant’s.

Beatrice, but not Bo Peep, spent time musing about how to solve problems. She felt guilt, which means she had some comprehension of justice — which is even an abstraction, God help us! Bo Peep had not.

Bea didn’t read — at least when my son and I were around — but we did think that perhaps as soon as we were out of the house she got out her knitting and watched Oprah. Or at least dog movies. Christopher, when he saw Bea sitting on top of a snow hill raptly gazing at the moon, figured her for a philosopher.

Even more, whenever I had to leave her, the people who dog-sat says she lay in front of their door, not eating, not playing — nothing until I came back. So she conceptualized me, and mourned my absence. That’s something rather complicated, don’t you think?

Bea had ‘second sight’ of a different kind, too — knew what I was going to do, before I myself knew. Bo Peep could have cared less. So, if these traits are indications of soul, I think Beatrice had a soul, but I didn’t think Bo Peep had one. Bo Peep was just a flat-out, standard-issue dog.

But given what happened next, I have come slowly, reluctantly, to realize that Bo Peep may indeed have had a soul. My reasoning is this: God will probably only take the time to interact directly with beings that have souls — otherwise He’s wasting his time.

A rock, even a pet rock, isn’t sentient enough to learn much, so I don’t think God stands around reading to it. A mosquito’s not much good, either. And if God is at all, I’m just personally sure His purpose is to teach. I mean we’re not still back there in the Garden of Eden staring at a snake in an apple tree.

And from what I’ve learned, the way God chooses to teach is through Karma: you know, when he says to Peter who’s just whomped off the ear of the guard in the other garden. Now what he meant by this is, ‘what goes around comes along’. Or, as my old mother used to say, “That’s your own breath blowing back in your face, girl!”

Yes. Karma is the boomerang effect — what you do that’s wrong is going to come right back at you, whether in this life or the next, it just doesn’t matter when — it’s gonna happen.

What Bo Peep’s fault was, as I already told you, was nipping. She was a nipper. We couldn’t cure her. She was just mean. She’d wait until you really weren’t expecting it, like when you’d fallen to sleep with your hand dangling over the couch, and Whompo! A wee tiny bit of you — just nip enough to hurt and leave a bruise — was between that dog’s teeth.

So after a couple years of this, Bo Peep, who was also greedy — I forgot to mention that — she had to be cured of greediness, too — found the bone remains of a sliced ham steak — a little round bone with a hole in the middle — on the beach. And so she sucked it in. And that bone got caught on edge between her jaws. Tight. Vertically.

Now notice the fine detailing of the Teacher here. When The Teacher teaches a lesson, He teaches a lesson, you know what I’m saying?. That bone had just enough of a hole in the middle so that Bo Peep could still get air — not a whole lot, but by wheezing she got just enough to keep her this side of the line, if you know what I mean by ‘the line’.

And because Bo Peep couldn’t let up on anything once she’d set her mind to having it, that dog could not figure out that the only way to get rid of a bone caught between her jaws was simply to open her mouth. We probably could have talked the bone out of Beatrice’s mouth, but nope, Bo Peep wasn’t having any of what Chris and I were trying to do for her. She clenched. The bone stayed in her mouth.

She couldn’t drink, she couldn’t eat. After a day, I started getting water into her by way of a syringe. I thought she’d release the bone. Nope. After two days Bo Peep II was still hanging on, but she was looking poorly.

I stopped smirking at the poetic justice being enacted before me like a stage play, and I took Bo Peep to my neighbor’s house, where the two of us wrapped her tight in a blanket, while the one of us not holding her tried to stay out of range of her anger, tried to hook the bone out from between her clenched jaws. But Bo Peep glared brimstone at us from the far end of her nose and kept a grip on that bone.

Finally, a vet, for $100 or so and a lecture, put Bo Peep II under anesthesia and lifted out the bone, easy as pie.

But the lesson had been given by someone or something bigger by Bo Peep, bigger than me, and I have to think that that lesson had been understood even by Bo Peep, because, as far as I knew, Bo Peep never nipped again — even her mother.

Was that a careful, detailed lesson well taught — or not?

And because of the coincidence that the nipper was cured of nipping by way of a bone stuck between the jaws that were the means by which she did the nipping, I believe, I truly do, that even the lowly Bo Peep II was subject to the universal law of Karma. And because she was subject to the Universal Law of Karma, I think that even the lowly Bo Peep II had a soul. I truly do. As I told you before, God doesn’t go to all that trouble for nothing.

So that’s the story. But I’ve got another one — I bet you didn’t know dogs aren’t any more dead when they die than we are, did you! — probably never even thought about it. The dog this next story’s about was truly a little dog — squat — only about eight inches off the ground. Looked like a squat little white dust mop.

What? You’ve got to get goin’? Well, come back again when you’ve got a few minutes more, and I’ll entertain you some more.

No, no, not a cent. Couldn’t even consider it. I never take money for my art.