This article was first published at Medium.com
Many people are shattered by the loss of their dog. People reveal the depth of their feelings and their desolation at the sudden absence of their friend. The strength of these feelings can come as a bit of a surprise.
Our dogs creep up on us. Too late we realise how far they have tunnelled into our lives, our beds, our hearts, our souls.
As with any loss there can be feelings of regret: all those times I was too lazy to play with her; when she made do with scraps because I’d forgotten to prepare her food; when she missed out on a walk because it was raining; when I came home exhausted from my fulfilling day to my lonely dog — and then was too tired to give her a little of my time.
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Your dog commits totally to you. And in return we can take her for granted.
But She’s Just a Dog
I think that we often underestimate our dog’s intelligence and ability to reason. It’s very easy to bark commands at her and expect her to know what on earth it is that we want.
But how often are our expectations of what we want her to do unmatched by time spent on teaching her those things? We expect her to arrive with human-world behaviour installed, or to learn it by osmosis.
How unfair we can be!
It’s a truism that a trained dog is a happy dog. But it’s also the case that an untrained dog is a very confused dog.
How hard it can be for our dogs to continually try to guess what will please us; guess what will annoy or frustrate us and cause our displeasure — which hurts them so much!
She doesn’t have the whole world to love — she just has you.
I insure against some of the pain of the loss of a dog by having plenty of them! I usually have three or four and am always planning the next puppy. If I could have only one dog, I’d be thinking ahead to the next one. I couldn’t live without that joy and beauty in the household for long.
And the more dogs who spend their lives with me, the more I can see how totally individual and different they are.
Your Dog is a Teacher as well as a Learner
We can teach our happy-go-lucky, outgoing, everybody’s-my-friend dog some calmness and moderation, and we can encourage our shy, diffident dog to venture forth and gain confidence, but the dog’s character will remain.
Through years of living with several dogs at a time, my takeaways are:
Your appearance does not matter. Sometimes it’s puzzling if someone takes against you because of the colour of your hair or the length of your nose. But that’s their problem. Your dog is not going to change his hair colour for anyone. Neither should you.
Other people’s opinion is not of much interest. If you want to roll in the muck and they don’t understand, that’s their loss. Be proud of who you are.
Take every opportunity to rest and regroup.
If someone encroaches on your personal or psychological space, just move away. Dogs are in the main all for a quiet life.
Enjoy every moment and live in the present. It doesn’t matter if you’re cold and wet later — leap in the pond now!
Never tire of telling your special people that you love them.
They don’t live long enough — that’s for sure!
Yet they give so much.
Let’s give our dogs our time and attention now, in the few short years they’re with us. If we build our relationship to the fullest, we won’t be astonished by the gap they leave when they die, nor be filled with regrets at having failed them.
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