My conversation with Ginger took place in our home after returning from Purdue’s Veterinary Teaching Hospital for Small Animals. Ginger had been a patient there Wednesday and Thursday of last week. Our local vet, Dr. Sabedra wanted Ginger to go to Purdue’s teaching hospital to determine the causes for several of her issues. While we haven’t gotten back the test results, the staff at Purdue concurs with Dr. Sabedra’s preliminary diagnosis that Ginger has some sort of allergic reaction to some foods. In a couple of weeks, we will find out what the results indicate for Ginger.

Ginger: It was nice being in the hospital last week, but I wish that you could have stayed with me. I missed you.

Me: Ginger, I missed you, too. However, I told you that I would be back and pick you up. You can trust me.

Ginger: Why didn’t you tell the doctors and staff that we need to talk to each other all the time regardless of where we might be?

Me: Ginger, that is a private matter. You are a gifted canine. However, you could have talked to them without my permission. Why didn’t you just start a conversation with them?

Ginger: Well, in your writings and our conversations, you use the term, rattled. I didn’t want to rattle them. However, I did toy with the idea of talking with the veterinary student, Jesse. I liked her. You took a photo of her while I was in the hospital. Nevertheless, I didn’t want to put her in a situation where she might feel that she had to tell her doctors about me talking to her. If I had told her about your webpage having some of our conversations, I don’t know what her supervisors would have thought.

Me: Well, next time, when Jesse and the doctors are in the same room with us, we will explain your unique ability.

Ginger: Okay. That’s a deal. Actually, it brings me to my section of your website: Thus Spoke Ginger. I haven’t counted the number of essays that you have written about our chats together, but it must be nearly a hundred.

Me: Well, as I said, you are an exceptional dog. You have the brains, and you are beautiful all wrapped up in eighty pounds of a hyper Irish Setter. Everyone at the hospital mentioned your brains and beauty.

Ginger: They were nice to me. Nonetheless, you used a title for my section of your website that is nearly identical to Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra. This article will begin the third week of essays about Nietzsche. As they say, you are on a roll. I think that you mentioned me in one of the essays.

Me: That is true; I named your section Thus Spoke Ginger based upon Nietzsche’s title for his book. However, that was a long time before my friend contacted me. You know about her visiting us in July. I visited her several weeks ago. As a gift, she gave me a book, The Music Lover’s Diary. I found, while thumbing through the pages of the blank pages, every several pages had quotes from some famous people including Nietzsche. This is his quote: “Without music, life would be a mistake…I would only believe in a God who knew how to dance.”

Ginger: I can’t wait until your former colleague arrives for a visit. You amaze me. You are cleaning up our home both inside and outside. You even had the road around the lake repaved in time for her arrival.

Me: Well, the house needed some touching up before her visit. I’m right-brained mostly. I am into creativity, the arts, etc. Nonetheless, on special occasions, I can become as orderly as any left-brained person…on rare occasions. There remains a ton of projects in the next couple of months for me to still address. However, when she does arrive, you must act like a nice young lady.

Ginger: I will. I just get excited when I see people.

Me: You were hyper when you were at the hospital.

Ginger: Okay. I’ll do better. However, I have a question about why you didn’t title my section of your webpage, Also sprach Ginger: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen. That section of your website is getting close to being an actual a book.

Me: Nietzsche wrote Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen in German, which is translated into English as Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None. Many of my readers might not be able to translate your section correctly into English if I used German. Ginger, remember that you are gifted. You are bilingual and a very affectionate canine.

Ginger: I appreciate your high praise of me. I was thinking about Übermensch and Nietzsche attempting to get his readers to move in the direction of becoming an Übermensch. He wrote in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, “Man is a rope, tied between beast and Übermensch—a rope over an abyss…what is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end.” He wants all humans to become all that they can be. His term is Übermensch. Actually, in German, the word means “superhuman person.” I’m trying to come up with a term for me. Überdog, Überhund, Übercanine, or ÜberGinger.

Me: What about ÜberPoohDog?

Ginger: When I see Jesse again, I’ll ask her.

Me: That would be a good idea. In the meantime, let’s go for a long walk and chat.

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