The Magic Box

Did you ever stand in an elevator with a dog on a leash? 

Dogs who live in apartment buildings are used to riding in elevators. They don't try to get out. They don't look around at the space they're in. They don't make eye contact with the humans present. They usually face the door. Their heads bowed, their eyes raised to the edge where the door cracks open. Waiting for that moment when they can leave this little room. For when the powers that be (probably humans) will open the door and they can resume normal life. They can go out walking in the world.

"They think it's a magic box," says Lyna, who walks dogs in NYC. "If I pick up two dogs in the same building on different floors, they don't always know which floor is theirs. The hallways look alike. And even the smells are so multi-layered one floor smells like the next. So as soon as the elevator door opens, out they go. They assume they're home."

They just think about leaving. They're not even doing their sniffing-everything-in-sight routine. Not the floor full of soles-on-street smells or the new humans standing around.

"Tootsie puts her nose near the opening and feels the bit of air coming through," says Gerry & Richard, who live with Tootsie, the dog. That's Tootsie in the picture up there.

Well, Tootsie is that kind of dog that goes the extra mile in dogdom. What she does, not every dog does. But she will just hang her head waiting like it's some kind of penance or prayer.

All the elevator dogs wait for release. Maybe they've figured if you stand still and be good you'll be freed from this tiny spot.

Do they know the room moves? How do they "rationalize" that sinking feeling. Or that rising feeling. That unnatural play with gravity. What do they think is going on? Do they behave so docile and penitent because they know they're engaged with some inexplicable supernatural force? That they must cower from. Pretend they're not there. Work at escaping notice. So that this unleashed power will leave them be?

When the elevator lands and solid gravity regains its normal personality, the door opens.

The dogs can breathe free. Go back to the business of being a dog. Head high, nose engaged, curiosity spilling all over the place.