Excerpts from the excerpt (e2) of Mark Rowlands’ new book, The Philosopher and The Wolf, from the The Telegraph.
On our runs together, I realised something both humbling and profound: I was in the presence of a creature that was, in most important respects, unquestionably, demonstrably, irredeemably and categorically superior to me. This was a watershed moment in my life. I can’t ever remember feeling this way in the presence of a human being. But now I realised that I wanted to be less like me and more like Brenin.
Things didn’t always go so smoothly. There would be the occasional mishap. After a few weeks, he started to enjoy a post-nap howling session halfway through the class. At other times, he would decide to stretch his legs, wandering up and down the aisles, having a little sniff around. One day, when he was feeling particularly bold or hungry, or both, I saw his head disappear into the backpack of a female philosophy major – someone who was, I think it is fair to say, a little nervous around dogs at the best of times – to emerge, a few seconds later, with her lunch.
I would announce our departure by saying, ‘Let’s go.’ This would be the cue for him to initiate his party piece: a cartwheel that he would perform on the living-room wall. His method involved running at and jumping on to the settee, then continuing his run up the wall. When he had got as high as he could, he would swing his back legs up and around, then run back down the wall. It was the same story every time we went out. Often Brenin would do his trick before I had said anything at all, as if to let me know that we had people to see and places to go.
Recent Comments