You need a dog!
I have been noticing more often how much a dog can influence the lives of their owners in positive ways. I always knew it but sometimes it becomes more apparent.
The other evening my neighbors dog came to visit. I never mind, he is a great dog, but I also know that it isn't permitted. Apparently he had wandered off while they were working on the numerous projects that accumulate over the winter months.
The next evening I spotted their entire family headed out for a hike. Sometimes it takes a dog to remind us of the importance of taking time out for fresh air, exercise, family time and nature.
These winter months have left my dog and I with a few extra pounds. He is young and energetic. Me, not so much. I thought the ideal solution, besides walking along the road all the time, might be a flirt pole. This is similar to a cat toy. It's a pole with a stretchy cord and a stretchy toy at the end. Terrific for exercising a dog while you stand in one place. However, before we can begin to use this new wonder we have to conquer a few new skills.
We need to learn the game of fetch. Apparently this is not an automatic thing for dogs, at least not my dog. I had to break it down. Throw the toy. "Fetch" "Bring it" "Give" "Good boy" Treat
Repeat. Seems easy right? Once or twice we get through the chain.
Throw, fetch, drop toy halfway back. "Get it. The toy. Get it." "Good, bring it. Give. No tug of war, Give. Good. Treat."
It is a lesson in patience and in figuring out how to get through to him what he needs to do to make the game continue.
I have found myself breaking down many command/responses this way over the past year. I learned the power of yes!
Bringing a dog into your life is a rewarding and challenging thing. Every dog is unique and no matter how many dogs you have had, each has a special gift to bring.
I recently read a book by Erin Taylor Young. The book is 'Surviving Henry - Adventures in Loving a Canine Catastrophe'.
It was definitely a laugh out load read. I know, I've seen that phrase on many a dust jacket too and barely cracked a smile but this book actually lives up to it. Her Henry is definitely a handful! Her humor through the frustration and damage a dog can cause is wonderful. Her conclusion is even more so.
She writes:
"Through Henry, God has been giving me not needless suffering, but a lesson in real love - God's love. The kind of love he has for me. The kind that's the hope for all of us flawed creatures.
Real love can't be about satisfying a feeling. It's too hard for that. It costs and it hurts and it's one life-wrenching mess of a lesson. Its choices and challenges and changes that are about you and not about the other person. It's embracing - no, embodying - the notion of unconditional giving. Of mercy. Of commitment.
It's becoming a better person for having lived through the crucible.
God did not punish me with a whacko dog. Henry is a gift. An opportunity day by day, minute by minute, disaster by disaster, to discover not what Henry can become, but what I can become.
I wouldn't trade this adventure for anything.
Maybe, after all is said and done, this isn't a dog's redemption story at all.
Maybe it's mine."
I know that the love, joy, pain, sorrow of sharing a lifetime with a dog has changed me in profound ways. I am becoming a better person.
