Jedi mind tricks

When Dmitri is riding in the back of my car, he manifests open windows regularly. Sometimes he goes from window to window and manifests over and over again within the space of a few minutes. I can see that he fixes in his mind the idea of the window opening and it magically obeys his will. We call it his Jedi mind trick--he stares at the window until it does what he wants it to. If the window is reluctant to comply, he adds a verbal cue--a soft "woof" to more concretely plant the thought in the mind of the window.

Of course, a human observer would think that the trick only works because I think the look he gives the window is cute, and the sight of his head hanging out is even cuter, so I manipulate the buttons by my seat to make his dreams come true. I guess that's one way of looking at it. But this discounts a couple of factors:

1. I used to get tired of the window-to-window-to-first-window rotation in the process, and tell him, "Tough. You're just going to have to stick with the passenger's side window." This attitude has since left me, and we are both endlessly entertained by the window trick.


2. He manifests lots of other things.

How do I know he manifests other things? Just a guess. He has regular meals and air conditioning and lives in a climate with seasons. These are all improvements over his early life.

When I first met Dmitri, his name was Crimson and he lived at the vet's office on the corner of my street in New Orleans. He was a year and a half old, still had his balls, had heart worms, weighed 45 pounds and had been hit by a truck. His former owners left him there because they couldn't pay the $600 surgery bill to repair his leg. Now I wish he that if he must have surgery that he would only require surgeries that cost a paltry $600. He now lives in North Carolina, which is warm enough but does enjoy a brief winter--a nice change with a fur coat like his. He weighs 75 pounds. And his new owner (me) is always as happy to see him as he is to see me, loves taking walks and is a very messy eater to boot so there are always crumbs to be found. What more could a dog ask for?

I'll admit that his becoming a eunuch was entirely my idea.