Lost

My brother and his girlfriend found a dog wandering around the streets. They brought her inside and let her stay the night much to the dismay of their family dog Chewy. My brother and his girlfriend are putting up fliers and checking to see if the lost dog is micro-chipped. But at a certain point, there is little that can be done.

This dog is a puppy. I asked my brother to send a picture, and the one with which he provided me is the one with which I have provided you, dear reader. Cute dog, no?

I feel that this post has one of the highest probabilities of pontificating into well-trodden and cliché ideas. Everything from the Bible to Nietzsche has covered the idea of being “lost.” I've had this picture for about a day now, and I couldn't think of anything smart or original to say about this lost dog. So, I'm not going to try.

All I can really say is that if I lost my dog, I would be sad. My dog is a good friend not because he's perfect but because he's flawed like his owner. My dog and I understand what it's like to angry and stressed and confused. We're friends because we are both flawed beings.

I bet the lost dog and her owner are also perfectly imperfect for each other.

When my brother told me the story of the lost dog, I thought of Aristophanes' Speech from Plato's Symposium. Aristophanes says that in the past, humans were complete with four arms, four legs, and two faces on one neck (189e-190a). Humans' shape was “complete” in the form of a perfect circle (189e). But while these humans were complete, their “strength and power were terrifying” (190b). So Zeus cut humans into two pieces: male and female. Thus separated from their perfect half, humans were weakened. Humans spent their lives searching for the other half of themselves. The act of intercourse is the humans trying to fit themselves back into their original, circular form. For Aristophanes, love “is just the name we give to the desire for and pursuit of wholeness” (193a).

I know Plato was writing about human love, but I bet the owner is looking for the lost dog much like we all look for our other half from which Zeus tore us apart. Aristophanes' tale is wonderfully artistic, and I believe love, as defined in this example, can be applied to the relationship between a human and a dog: the search for a perfect match, where, when whole, the human and the dog have emotional strength and completeness impossible when separated.

The probability of this post actually helping is astronomically small, but I had to do something. Maybe these posted pictures will help reunite the puppy with her family. Out of sympathy for the affected parties and out of hope that the lost dog and her owner will become circular again, I'm doing all I can from Nor. Cal.

If you know of someone in the Fontana, CA area who lost a dog that matches this description, please let me know via the comments section, and I can put you in contact with the necessary people.

Plato. Symposium. Trans. Robin Waterfield. New York: Oxford U.P., 1994.