Jasper's Conditional Love

Jasper put his head in my lap and looked at me, lovingly, with his big brown eyes.  It almost seemed he was ready to say something.

“What is it, Jasper?  What do you want to say?” I asked, petting the top of his head.

I believe the desire was there—he truly wanted to verbalize a thought—it was on the tip of his long tongue… but he just couldn’t form the words.

One of the things that draw people to dogs is that they appear to extend unconditional love to us.  That’s a tremendously attractive quality.  Jasper’s love, however, is conditional and he really does not attempt to hide that fact.  With Jasper, it is a blatantly conditional love that comes my way.

You see, I was eating some Fritos (no, not sliced apples, it was Fritos) and that’s why Jasper was giving me the time of day.  He gazed at me with rapt attention, occasionally licking my hand or nuzzling his head against my leg.

And, of course, soon the bag of Fritos was gone.  But guess what?

Jasper still sat with his head in my lap!

I scratched behind his ear and let out a contented chuckle.  “Perhaps he loves me more than I realized,” came the pleasant thought.

It turns out, though, there was a small piece of Fritos sticking to the upper part of my pant leg.  Jasper ate it and walked away.  After all, Nadia had some sour cream and onion potato chips.