She took a deep breath trying to control her anger. Ever since she was a little girl she was prone to these irrational anger bursts, which, she felt, were uncontrollable and out of her reach.
As much as she tried, Dottie could never get on top of those episodes, and she would just surrender to them lashing out, breaking things, and often, saying very hurtful things.
Once they passed she would be so sorry, she would cry and would apologize ‘Dottie just went a bit … dotty! You know I did not mean it! It is part of my charm …’, but as it turned out, her anger was not that charming and all her partners bid her farewell, in nicer or harsher terms, and Dottie found herself an angry, lonely, middle aged woman.
As time went by Dottie found that she was not consumed just by anger, but also by something similar to hatred. All the people around her seemed to have everything she did not. They were the lucky ones with good lives, people that loved them, they did not have any ‘issues’, as she did apparently.
She disliked all of them deeply. Them and their perfect little lives. As a consequence she avoided them as much as she could. Christmases were spent shut in the house with the curtains drawn watching reruns of old shows. Dottie just could not face all the glitz and joy that seemed to be floating around.
The only good thing was that on Christmas day the parks were deserted as all the people were at home stuffing their faces.
On such a day, bright and cold, Dottie went out to enjoy a bit of fresh air before the madness that would come on Stephen’s day, when all of them would go out prancing around, showing off their presents, adorned themselves as human Christmas trees.
The grass was crunching under her feet and the cold air felt nice against her face. A perfect, frozen, desolate world.
Then a loud barking could be heard getting closer and closer. Before Dottie had time to process what was happening, an extremely fast dog came running towards her and stopped right next to her, for some strange reason deciding to hide behind her.
Next on the scene was this very tall, very athletic young woman also running towards Dottie.
Unsure of what to do, Dottie sat there without moving, with the dog hiding behind her legs.
The young woman reached them and stopped in front of Dottie as relaxed as if she had just walked very slowly. Dottie could not help but dislike her stamina and vigour.
‘Hello!’
She sounded just as she looked, upbeat and bright.
Dottie just continued to look at her without saying anything.
‘I can see you there, you little monster!’ and she extended her neck to see behind Dottie.
‘He is such a messer! Border Collies, honestly I don’t know why people think they can have them as a pet in an apartment. That is from where he came to us.’ She pointed to her coat and Dottie saw that it had the name of a dog rescue charity on it.
‘Sadly, most likely he will have to be with us for a long time, he is now a strange hybrid between a working, obsessed, normal Border Collie and a dog used to living inside a cozy home.’
‘Come on Bunny, stop messing!’
‘His name is Bunny?’ Dottie could not resist but smile, the woolly, muddy dog looked nothing like a bunny.
‘Yeah, funny right? I think it was a little girl that named him when he was a puppy, and then the name just went on, although now he is more like a devil than anything else.’
Dottie turned around and looked at the dog sitting comfortably, leaning against her legs. He looked up and she felt like melting faced with such kindness and honesty.
‘Can I walk with you?’ Dottie asked before having time to change her mind.
The young woman agreed able to recognize the instant connection between the two.
‘Let’s go Bunny!’ as Dottie started to walk the dog shot again running around the park, scaring birds and rounding up leaves.
This was to be just the first time in many when they all walked around the park. Fiona, as the young woman was called, taught Dottie how to communicate with Bunny, and most important, how to make Bunny listen to her.
Bunny was a wild character, very intense, sharp and in need of a purpose. Bunny would be obsession prone and Dottie had to learn how to snap him out of it, she would softly whisper to him ‘Center, center!’ and change his focus on something else, giving him time to recover.
Dottie found it amusing that, while she was learning to control Bunny, she was also, in a way, learning to control herself. Now, often when she went out shopping, or in the street and somebody angered her, she would think at Bunny and would softly whisper to herself ‘Center, center!’, and that would do the trick helping her recover and not blow up.
As it was to be expected Bunny became her dog and she became his person. The first day in the house was chaos, but good chaos, and then bit by bit they both got centered and found their rhythm together.
Weirdly enough, Dottie found that now her anger outbursts had become very rare, and even then, they were quite mild compared to … well, the ones she did not want to remember.
And Bunny, well, he was still a major messer, but that was part of his charm!
Wonderful!