When my dogs wag their tails they wag my vulnerability. How they look at me with old new eyes seizes my innocence. That they prance at expectations paws at my laziness and compels me to play.

All this from one dog found wrapped in a plastic trash bag and rescued; the other entrusted to me for law enforcement; both entering renewed dramas played out by their present keepers, my wife and me.

How they play on my wife's spirituality is a lot different from the way they strum my discord. But it puts me at ease and maintains the connection between me and that which I think reflects me wagging its tail. Whatever personification I assign them is sometimes reflective of my selfishness. That I believe they are beyond self-serving manipulation in their canine innocence by the way they draw attention to themselves, is what I wish of all action toward me. And much like their gripping gaze interprets, expect it.

I wish for myself more than I deserve by granting to the nuances of my canine charges unconditional love. For then I enjoy believing that when they lean their mass against me it's because they believe it, too. And if I continue this personification of my four-legged friends, might it not easily translate to the two-legged ones around me? If I ignore the loud barking and messy ways of one - the dogs - shouldn't it be just as easy to look past the inconveniences of the other - people?

I should wonder that I assign my dogs better traits than I assign to people. Or that I fail to appreciate the differing challenges presented by numerous responses unlike a pet's. Or that I'm made to learn about this from a kingdom not of my breeding. Perhaps it's a dog's doggedness that rekindles my appreciation in knowing that I, too, fit a scheme where if I'm good someone will toss me a bone. Dare I wish for more? No, thanks. I'm only made of the kind of ambition that drives me far enough to be able to afford to be lazy; much like the way Magick and Morres earn the right to lie at the foot of the bed for as long as they please.

My dogs bark me simple and whine me warm. They stare me humble and nudge me caring. They lick me to the mind that matched them to trees, then fire hydrants, then to my heart. For in the broad ribbed folds of two beasts growls the Ohm of a different reality.

Alex Kiilehua is a police officer with an Orange County police agency. In his spare time, Alex enjoys combining martial arts and philosophical writings in an attempt at emulating the popular warrior-poets of Japan: Morihei Uyeshiba and Miyamoto Mushashi.