My dog, Chaco, turns 15 years old next week. I know there is a popular notion that dog years are actually measured in multiples of human years so that relatively speaking, 15 is akin to a Methusaleh experience. Personally, 15 is a long enough time as it is; I don’t need to multiply him by anything in order to appreciate how much I love him.

15 years ago, I was a 25 year old man with a Masters from Harvard and not a pot to piss in. No, really, I lived in a 9 ft. trailer in the middle of the New Mexican desert. I had no electricity, no heat and well, no toilet. Studying with shamans has historically never been a cake walk so I didn’t expect much regarding accommodations.

As the warmer breezes of spring rolled through the valley I drove to the local post office of the nearest town to send a letter ( remember the post office? ). There was a big red pick-up truck in the parking lot with big, fluffy, yapping, yellow puppies in the bed. The owner explained that “their bitch had been knocked up again by that damned Shepherd” and they simply couldn’t afford to feed the puppies anymore. The next step was death by drowning. Drowning?!?

It is said that we choose our relationships and our teachers choose us. The little, scrawny runt sat trembling at the back of the truck and peed a good sized puddle the second I looked at him. “I’ll take the little pisser, please.”

Chaco was not named for his chocolate dark complexion as many have assumed through the years. He was named for Chaco Canyon, the center of the turquoise trade in the Americas one thousand years ago and the namesake of the ancestors that would become today’s Navajo Nation.

He was afraid of his own shadow. He cried for weeks and screamed bloody murder every time I tried to pick his little body up and cradle him in my arms. Folks were convinced I was beating him due to the terrible noises he evoked on a regular basis. It took six months for a vet to realize he had a urinary tract infection that was beyond infected.

Chaco has now spent the better part of fifteen tremendous years with me and as an old timer with a fairly relaxed urethra, he has taken up peeing freely again. Living in a home with an incontinent canine has its challenges, especially now that we live upstairs in a brick building in one of the largest cities in the country. At the same time, there is something very familiar about the dynamic I am experiencing with my dear old dog.

The impulse to get irritated, frustrated and resentful each time the floor is wet or another rug is sent to be laundered is a mindful reminder about what it means to commit to another being. Maybe I chose the peeing runt who trembled at the back of the truck because I like challenges. Maybe, I figured he was the least likely to get adopted before being tossed into the river. Then again, maybe, just maybe, Chaco chose me because I had some things to learn and he was just the one to teach me.

I used to live on a small ranch in New Mexico where my neighbors and I enjoyed plenty of room between our respective properties. A gorgeous rock cliff served as demarcation to the north and then there was just land everywhere else sprinkled with some houses, horse corrals and the train tracks to the south. Each morning I’d open my front door and my dogs would take off into the sage brush and chamisas, doing their business as they saw fit. No leashes, plastic bags or parks. In fact, no one seemed to care what my dogs were doing or where horses pooped or how deep into my land the neighbors’ llamas grazed.

And yet, I was very aware of an unspoken code of boundaries. An understanding existed, floated, between all of the land-owners out there in the high desert. Centered on respect, folks out there beneath the big sky understood that we all lived out in the hills because we wanted the privacy, freedom and peace to live our lives without much interference.

Floodlights were put on motion sensors so as not to disrupt the natural beauty of the night sky for anyone else. No radios spewed unwanted music across the succulents and pinon trees. Our road remained unpaved year after year in order to keep traffic at a minimum. It was quiet and simple enough to focus on what was happening internally without many external distractions.

Many people thought I was off my rocker when I voluntarily moved to the heart of Chicago. And yet, city life isn’t terribly different from rural living. Not terribly…

People still like their freedom, peace and privacy they just go about it a bit differently. Less of an unspoken code here, folks seem very committed to the written laws in place and are often rapidly on board when it comes to their enforcement. People seem resolved never to see the night sky so who cares if you leave your lights on all night or if your car alarm goes off three times a night? Living on top of and beneath people day in and day out, it also gets hard to avoid being in other people’s business. I can easily distinguish when the neighbors are fighting and when they are making up…Hey, that’s city life, right?

Boundaries are a funny thing in the big city. We love our freedoms but we’re willing to do all sorts of things in order to make sure other people are following the rules properly. We love our peace and quiet but we can only attain real peace here by consciously choosing to be unconscious. While I don’t mind living in the city now, I do miss the unspoken commitment to live and let our neighbors live.