Vénérons le chien. Le chien (quel drôle de bête!), a sa sueur sur sa langue et son sourire dans sa queue.
Victor Hugo, L’Homme qui rit
Victor Hugo nailed it over a century ago: the dog has its sweat on its tongue and its smile in its tail.
And here’s Sharka, this gorgeous Portuguese Water Dog, proving Hugo’s point on some windswept beach. You can practically see that smile in her tail, can’t you? That unbridled, unselfconscious joy that we humans spend our entire lives chasing through bottles, accomplishments, and fleeting moments of recognition.
Meanwhile, this dog? She’s already there. She’s been there. She doesn’t need to find meaning.
Sharka is meaning.
This dog on this beach understands something I’m still struggling to learn: that the sacred and the simple are the same fucking thing.
Vénérons le chien, indeed. Let us venerate the dog. Not because they’re cute or loyal or any of that Hallmark card bullshit, but because they’ve figured out what we’ve forgotten, how to be fully, completely, stupidly alive in the moment. No regrets, no anxiety about tomorrow, just salt air and sand and the pure animal pleasure of being.