There was once a dog who had an entrepreneur.

They lived together in a city apartment with a single bed at the foot of which the dog slept, a bathroom with a toilet from which the dog often drank, and a small kitchen at the floor of which the dog liked hunting for surprises.

The dog was a scruffy little dog with a bit too much white and grey fur on his face and not quite enough on his body. His ears flopped up when he jumped with his short legs, and didn’t flop back when he landed. He had a pointy, hairless, perpetually wagging tail, the sole reason for existence of which was for him to chase.

The dog liked scratching and licking various parts of his body, and listening to the noise of the neighbours in the next apartment, and the traffic outside. He liked walking out onto the apartment balcony to sniff the breeze and bark at the birds that tried to land on the flowers and herbs flowing out of the single row of plant containers.

The dog was a very smart dog and had successfully taught his entrepreneur many things.

He showed the entrepreneur how to pat him on the his head and rub his belly and scratch his back.

He trained the entrepreneur to be gentle with the leash, to cooperate when the dog wanted to stop at his favourite lamp post, and to throw his best green ball for him to fetch.

He made sure the entrepreneur got up at the same time every morning to feed him and take him out for a walk, as soon as his wet nose made contact with the entrepreneur’s face and neck, cozy as it may have been under the covers.

But there was one thing that try as he might, the dog could not teach the entrepreneur.

You see, the dog knew that the entrepreneur had big dreams and wanted to make an impact. Having just raised a nice sum of money from some angel investors, the entrepreneur wanted the product launch to be perfect so that the company could move towards a series A funding. The entrepreneur was the leader of the company, the generator of creative ideas and the one who took responsibility for the company’s success and failure.

The entrepreneur’s business, like every other company, went through cycles of doing well and not so well. Sometimes this was due to the entrepreneur’s creative talents and sometimes this was due to the whims and fancies of others.

And very often this was due to forces beyond anyone’s control.

And so during a normal day spent working on the business, it was possible for the entrepreneur to be passionate, focused, optimistic, motivated and fearless, as well as bored, scatterbrained, anxious, despondent and fearful.

Sometimes all at the same time.

But since the entrepreneur was a responsible creator of the business everything that happened to the business also happened to the entrepreneur. The business and the entrepreneur were one and the same.

But the dog knew a secret.

He knew that his entrepreneur was not the business.

For he loved the entrepreneur when the funding came through and he loved the entrepreneur when the new product line failed.

He loved the entrepreneur on the day the stock market crashed, taking down the economy and, as it seemed at the time, the dreams of the entrepreneur with it.

He loved the entrepreneur when a design breakthrough came about that would solve all the problems and take the business to the next level.

He loved the entrepreneur when the bills to be paid came in fast and furious and the entrepreneur had a breakdown.

He loved the entrepreneur when the quarterly results came in and the company showed a profit.

He loved the entrepreneur during moments of great success, and despite moments of great failure.

He even loved the entrepreneur’s dizzying range of emotions.

He was a smart dog but this was something he could not communicate. Even when he stared hard at the entrepreneur that evening on the couch, his head cocked with a quizzical expression on his heavily bearded face.

The entrepreneur absentmindedly scratched the dog’s chin, staring at a spreadsheet on the laptop. The dog sighed as he lay down, enjoying the feeling of the entrepreneur’s finger nails while watching the television screen, in which a group of adult men jostled each other as they chased down a ball.

The dog was a hopeful dog.

He realized that his entrepreneur was a work in progress.

And so tomorrow he would try again.