+top trainer of animal actors (SVU, Sex and the City, Disney, the list goes on!) +have fun with your dog learning cool new tricks +http://subscribe.dogpotentialunleashed.com/ + https://linktr.ee/dogpotentialunleashed
Not Today
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(trigger warning - no one dies, but this has to do with death) Those of us who have lived our lives with dogs and who are no longer young have a certain understanding about dogs dying. We've been through it and we know the ins and outs. But we only know it as well as we know how to live in a home. We understand the rough layout, the touchstones that tell us we are here where we belong, but each place we have lived was different. Each dog steps in and out of our life in a different way, in no small part because we, too, have aged. The prism through which we view their life and death is not the same. There are a lot of repetitive refrains we tell each other and ourselves. There are words we use and words we typically don't. They pass, they gain wings, they go over the rainbow bridge. They let us know the time has come. We release them from suffering. We let them go. Because we cannot fathom the hard edge of reality. That the line between us is severing. That we as we know it will be no more. Death is a hard word to pull out of one's mouth. Kiss has given me more time to think about loss than any dog who came before. We are 14 months into hospice. I am following her because I don't really know this terrain. I pick her up when she stumbles and falls. Sometimes we wonder, together, whether it's worth getting up this time. But once righted, she chooses her direction and moves on. This is where we are now. She is the most judgmental of dogs, and perhaps, to be anthropomorphic, the least sentimental. She is fiercely loyal to those she has deigned to love, but even we are not above being critiqued and corrected when we do not toe the line. Kiss lives her life striving to be and do the best, she expects nothing less from us. Do dogs teach us things by who they are? Kiss simultaneously judges me and loves me unconditionally. She might think I'm an idiot sometimes, but I'm her idiot. Dogs teach us a different way of loving. So heavy with responsibility yet so free of expectation. Kiss is dying but it's enough that right now we can say not today.
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DOG POTENTIAL UNLEASHED
+top trainer of animal actors (SVU, Sex and the City, Disney, the list goes on!) +have fun with your dog learning cool new tricks +http://subscribe.dogpotentialunleashed.com/ + https://linktr.ee/dogpotentialunleashed
Yesterday, a day that I had earmarked for sitting at my desk promoting my upcoming webinar, was gloriously sunny. Plans were modified. I let the dogs run the show for a time, and we played raucous games of tackle fetch together until they were panting heavily and ready for a rest. That took quite some time, as they are young, fit and love sport. While I was being repeatedly asked to throw the ball, often faster than I could compose myself from a previous toss, I thought about how 'common...
This past week, Know Me and I had fun playing a new game, mimicry. For most dogs, my others included, it's not all that fun. They prefer to have someone explain what's going on, to help them learn a task. But Know Me loves watching people and he thought this was the best thing ever. Here are a couple of YouTube videos. There are many things that have informed the changes in the way I interact with, and teach my dogs. Success is not part of it. Honestly, I find that argument frustrating. I...
The line between poetry and science is not delineation, it is the well worn trail we find ourselves on again and again. It is the comfortable space we find ourselves in when we have learned to both assimilate the knowledge gained from research and study, and the intuition gained from years of intimately sharing our lives with dogs, knowing them as well as we know ourselves. The line between poetry and science is where we find ourselves when we are at our best. When we, teacher, can see in...