Description: Dogs and Disturbance is a story set in blank verse about living with dogs. What we see isn't what dogs can smell or hear, nor is what we care about the same, except ironically it is. Living with dogs lends this perspective. It's absurd to claim we know everything when we are so ignorant about what these other creatures intuitively understand. Temple Grandin suggests dogs may have taught us about life in a pack. They certainly have taught us companionship as a fundamental part of life. To a dog companionship is everything. The poems study love as a universal condition, existing between species, and individual creatures. It argues for the commonality of all life forms as opposed to claims of human superiority. Species nor individual, neither can succeed by dominance, no matter how successful if it doesn't support a deep humility for all life. The end condition of life is death for all creatures. How we meet it, and how we may help others meet it is some kind of measure of our worth.
