Here’s one of the most hilarious things that has happened to me recently… well, it’s funny now!
I was performing an outdoor gig one afternoon recently. It was hot, very humid and I was under a black canopy that further exaggerated an “oven effect.” The oppressively hot, northeast mid-July afternoon weather was not conducive the massive throng of adoring fans complete with a mosh pit I was expecting … (well, c’mon, don’t YOU always expect that?). Except for a handful of a few small groups huddled beneath sun umbrellas and a woman with a tiny dog not twenty feet in front of me, it was a very modest gathering. And me.
I was just finishing the fourth song, I think, when the dog got loose. The woman got up and chased after it to snag the leash, but the dog kept on moving, sniffing around various tables looking for a hand out until he wandered over toward me and approached the little riser stage I was on. He crept right up to my monitor, looking into it like Nipper the famous RCA dog, turned around and looked at straight up at me, cocked his little head, then lifted his leg and peed right onto the monitor!
I was absolutely astonished! Speechless! Stunned! Then I just started laughing! The woman, beet red with a combination of anger at the pooch and embarrassment was yelling at the dog, chasing after him around the tables and all I could do was laugh! I mean, REALLY?? It was just absolutely hilarious. My thoughts ran from “am I really THAT bad?” to “did he hate the song? Is it me??” It was just the funniest and weirdest thing that’s happened to me on a gig … well, sorta.
So that experience threw me. No harm to gear, but I just couldn’t process what inspired the pup to do that. Questions arose in my mind, and it got philosophical. Was it a sign? What was he trying to tell me? Did he really hate my music? My voice? My guitar work? It wasn’t until later that evening at a gathering of friends after having told that story, that a close friend of mine, Kirsten, a very wise woman, a sage, and an artist said, “Sarah. He was marking his territory. It’s a compliment and he was telling you he liked what he was hearing … and by the way, you’re his now!”
I’ll buy that! Honestly, I think Kirsten is right. At another stage in my life, I might have been greatly offended. and indignant. But animals have a voice too, they are very intuitive (my Golden Retriever was nearly human). That little dog was telling me he really LIKED what was coming out of that monitor.
Maybe my music really is going to the dogs, but I’m OK with that! Check out my Christmas single release, a cover of “Christmas Is Going To The Dogs “(the Eels). Available on Apple Music, Spotify. I’ll bet he’d really like that one!
