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1 The Book Of Love – my top ten rules for dating…

The Book Of Love – my top ten rules for dating…

Every few years – or is it every few days? – a new book comes out telling people what rules to follow in dating. Often it’s rules to help women make sure men will marry them, or rules to help men get women to give them their phone numbers. Well, as a dog, I don’t know much about marriage or phone numbers; what I understand is LOVE. Love is extremely easy for me – I’ve never spent a day not loaded with it, acting on it, and often getting in some trouble for it! But I see you humans struggle with it all the time.

So I’ve worked my thoughts down to five simple rules – with one additional bit. If you follow these, you really should be able to find love. I can’t tell you how quickly, or promise it will last forever. But I can tell you that if you don’t at least follow the five, you’re going to be pretty miserable in your search. Believe me – I see it every day.

Here goes.

 

Rule One: Know Yourself

 

This is very difficult, because no person has ever known themselves fully. But the more you know about yourself, the better off you are.

It’s amazing how honored this rule is. The Temple at Delphi in ancient Greece had this rule written on it, and one of Shakespeare’s most famous lines says it beautifully, “To Thine Own Self Be True.”

But do I mean that you shouldn’t ask someone cute to a movie until you’ve meditated twenty hours a day for twenty years? Of course not. No, I mean that you can’t really be a good boyfriend or girlfriend, or certainly husband or wife, without knowing yourself first. What do you really care about? What do you really like? What do you really hate?

Teenagers, as I so often say, are really brilliant and passionate. But they also do care a great deal about what other teens think. So, for example, a teenager might spend a lot of time listening to some music because it’s popular, that they really don’t like all that much. Why?  Because it’s important to them to like what’s cool! Now there’s nothing wrong with that, but if a teen truly Knows Themselves, they’ll realize that what they love is appearing cool, not that music itself.

Similarly, it’s very normal for humans to go through a stage growing up where they very strongly believe in exactly what their parents believe – watch twelve-year-olds in a political argument; they’ll passionately believe they’ve looked at all sides of an issue, when they’re really arguing about whose mom is more right! What’s funny is that, a few years later, those same kids will just as passionately argue that everything their parents believe in is wrong!

Because of this, I’m a big fan of waiting on any serious commitment till you’ve aged past both of those. Know what YOU believe. Only then can you truly offer yourself to another.

 

 

Rule Two: Know Your Boundaries – and Enforce Them!

I’m not judgmental. I know of people who don’t even see each other’s faces until they’ve married, and others who wouldn’t even commit to calling each other boyfriend-and-girlfriend until they’ve moved in together. Some people are only comfortable with holding hands, and others… well, have you heard about this movie out now whose title sounds like it’s about a beautiful Irish Wolfhound but it’s actually about people who like spanking and being spanked?!

I don’t care what your romantic boundaries are (as long as you don’t do anything to anyone that they don’t want, or to anyone who isn’t old enough to choose). But it is VITAL that you know what they are. So many female humans write me about having gone out with boys and done things they didn’t feel ready for, and they feel awful about it. Even some boys feel pressured. And it’s SO common for young people to not feel they have the right to say what they want and don’t want to each other.

All of these are recipes for discomfort or disaster. So, as well as knowing yourself, decide before you go out with anyone what you will and won’t do. And of course, know that that can change over time.

But don’t just decide it – ENFORCE it. If you don’t want a boy to touch your leg, and he does, tell him in no uncertain terms that that’s not okay. If you don’t want your date texting you ten times a day, let her know. And if that person doesn’t respect the boundaries you’ve set, DUMP THEM! You don’t want to be with someone who doesn’t respect you. It can only go badly!

Meanwhile, someone who does respect your boundaries will feel good to you. And you’ll find that you can still have lots of fun within those rules. And THAT is a great foundation for a great relationship!

 

 

Rule Three: Give What You Want!

You’ve all heard of the Golden Rule, “Do Unto Others as You Would Have Them Do Unto You,” right? Well one thing I find people forget is to take this to a higher level in relationships.

For example, let’s say you’re someone who feels really bad when people don’t pay close attention to what you say. So sure, it’s great to (following Rule One) be aware of that, and (following Rule Two) insist that anyone you date does listen closely to you. But the best way to bring in a partner who does that is for you to pay really close attention to others! Do it yourself, and you’ll attract people who also value it. It’s that simple.

Now I don’t mean this to an extreme literal level. For example, I love getting tummy rubs from Handsome, but my paws would scratch him up if I tried to give them back! But in a broader sense, I do value touch and warmth and someone making me feel good. So as much as Handsome rubs my tummy, I lie against him, and lick his face and hands, and do anything I can to give him the same touch and warmth he gives me.

Similarly, I like a mixture of lots of attention and some distant space. So that’s just what I give him. And it works.

I guess another way of saying this same rule is to not be a hypocrite in love. If you want to be treated with respect, don’t treat others with disrespect. You might find someone who is willing to put up with unequal treatment, but the relationship will always feel flat and disconnected. Far better to put what you want out there, and then let those who can’t return it go their own way. That will create room for someone better for you.

 

Rule Four: See Others as They Truly Are (not as someone you used to know)

This one is just about as difficult as that Know Yourself rule. I see dogs all the time who’ve been hurt or kicked by, say, a tall white male, so they are convinced that all tall white males are going to hurt or kick them. This is what’s commonly known as Prejudice, but a better name for it is Stupidity.

If you own your boundaries, then that should free you up to experience all sorts of new and fun people in your life. So if you went out with a girl ten years ago who rejected you for not being built like Channing Tatum, it’s fine to be a bit concerned that that might happen again, but it doesn’t mean that every girl feels that same way – some girls LIKE thin guys!

And if your brother and his guy friends always insulted you for having such curly hair, don’t assume all boys will be like that – some guys just LOVE long curls!

Handsome had a very funny situation with this long ago. He had a girlfriend whose father would always put on a silly show whenever he came to an automatic door, of throwing his arms open wide, like Moses parting the Red Sea, to open them. It had been cute for a while, but by now she was tired of it. Now Handsome didn’t do that, but he would always put his hand in front of him as he’d approach one of those doors, to make sure the sensor would operate. And every time he did it, she’d accuse him of doing the silly thing her dad would do. Over and over, he’d insist that he was just being safe, but she’d insist he was lying.

And you can probably guess where this is going: One day they approached an automatic door, he waved his hand out, the door didn’t open, and he stopped, but she walked straight into it – BAM! – and bruised her nose! Now he’s not an especially mean guy, but he did laugh about that for an hour. Not because he liked seeing her in pain, but because he was so tired of her insisting that he was doing something just because her dad had done it. No, he was himself.

So is everyone else. Give them a chance to prove it. For better and for worse.

 

 

Rule Five: Speak Up!!!

Yeah, I know I said that thing before about enforcing boundaries, but what else do you have to say? Do you love the way that person smiles when they’re embarrassed? Do you wish they wouldn’t put themselves down so much? Do you just melt when they’re wearing that one outfit? Do you find their humor outrageously funny except when they joke about that one issue you find offensive? TELL THEM!!! Why in the world wouldn’t you?

We dogs tell what we’re feeling all the time! When we want to play, when we love you, when we think you smell interesting, when you’ve stepped on our tail, when we’re sad, when we hate being locked up, when we don’t trust someone… AND WE CAN’T TALK! You have such gifts of communication – USE them!

Touching is great, and no one loves it more than I do. But you can create intimacy in so many other ways, just by letting the other person know what’s going on in you.

And by asking them things! Let’s say you’re on a date with a gorgeous girl who every boy at school is interested in. Do you really think you’re going to prove yourself something special by putting your arm around her at a show? That’s nice, but no big deal. But what if you’re the first guy to ever ask her about her cat? Her cat who she loves more than anything else in the world, who she dreams about, who she finds endlessly fascinating. All you’ve done is ask about that little creature, and suddenly she’s opening her heart to you – and thinking you’re the best guy Ever!   And then imagine you respond by telling her about the dog you had when you were six, who you still miss all these years later. You’ve forged a bond with her that no other guy ever will.

Now does that mean she’ll want you for a boyfriend? Maybe not – maybe she’s interested in twenty other things that you don’t have. But maybe, just maybe, you’ve moved yourself up to the front of the line. Just by talking about what you two care about.

 

Now, these aren’t all the rules there are, certainly. But these are my top five. The ones to protect you from being with the wrong person.  The next on my list are more fun. They include things like playing, teasing, dancing, joking, tickling… all the stuff that makes love a blast. And for those, I want to tell you about the sexiest dog I ever heard of. His name was Wolfgang.

Wolfgang was a dog Handsome had as a boy, and he had more attitude than Tramp and Rin Tin Tin put together. One day, Handsome was walking him in a park, and Wolfgang pulled away and ran off with his leash. Three teenage girls were sitting on a hillside nearby, watching a tennis match. And Wolfgang saw them and went in for an attack. Coming from behind them on the left, he licked each one on the back of the neck, just under their left earlobe. And as one would turn in shock to look, he ran to the next, licking her ear, and off to the next. So he basically created a perfect chorus line of these girls, turning to their left, to see… nothing, because he was already past them!

It was so funny, and so naughty, and yet so innocent. This was years before I was born, but I can tell you right now, I am completely in love with him, just from that story. Wolfgang LIVED romance. Just as I do.

 

Did any of those girls go out with him? Give him their phone number? Marry him?! Of course not – they were humans! But this spirit, this energy, mixed with him knowing himself, enforcing his boundaries, giving what he wanted, seeing others as they were, and speaking up…? He could have had any pooch he wanted!

 

That’s a lot to ask, I know. But if you can do all these things, you can live like me, and Wolfgang. And like every human out there who lives a life full of real love.

 

And I promise you, that’s a lot better than any phone number!!!

 

Earlobe Kisses,

Shirelle

 

4 Led Off the Path …the problem of struggling with goals…

Led Off the Path …the problem of struggling with goals…

You all know about my friend Handsome, the human I live with. Most of the time, I look at him with wide-eyed idolatry – he is so smart and powerful that he can make a car turn on, he can open locked doors with just a key, and he’s able to get all the food he wants without even chasing squirrels! And oh, how he knows just where to scratch my tummy… I mean he’s just brilliant!

But at the same time, sometimes he’s pretty clueless. There’s so much he doesn’t get. And that’s where I get to feel useful, and even smart, by helping him out.

For example, he was brooding around the house a few days ago, about the fact that 2014 will be over soon. Not that he’s loved the year so much he hates to see it go (he’s had those), or that he’s hated it so much he wishes it were gone already (he’s had those too), or that it’s just rushed by so fast (that happens EVERY year!). This one was more specific. “When last year ended,” he grouses, “all these things, all these achievements of mine, were set to happen. I was so excited about what 2014 would bring. And here it’s almost gone, and none of them is here! I haven’t accomplished a single thing I expected to!”

It’s never fun for me when he’s in moods like this. He goes stomping around (which can mean he doesn’t see me and accidentally steps on my tail), sometimes yelling at himself, and often forgetting important things – like feeding the dog!

So I really wanted to make things better for him. Which made me think – what does it mean when you haven’t done all you’d planned on?

 

Now that can happen because you were lazy and didn’t do the work you were supposed to. Or it can be because you weren’t organized enough and all your work went to the wrong things. Or it could be because you just didn’t care. Those are all easy to change.

But in Handsome’s case, it wasn’t any of those. He worked hard all year, and most of the time he was very organized, with a focus to achieve these goals.

Nope, the reason he didn’t accomplish what he’d planned was that 2014 was a year in which hundreds, yes I said hundreds, of things got in his way.

You know those days, when you wake up and say “I’m going to work ahead in that class and write that paper today, even though it’s not due for two weeks”… and then the phone rings and it’s your best friend crying because their biggest crush told them they weren’t interested… and then your dad comes in and says you have to clean out the garage before their party tonight… and then your little brother falls and breaks his thumb, and you have to go to the emergency room with him…

…And suddenly, the day’s gone. And you’ve lived the opposite of bad or lazy – you’ve been a good friend, a good daughter, and a good sister (or son and brother) – but that paper hasn’t even been started. And on top of that, while you were cleaning the garage, three friends called you to ask for help on the math homework, and while you were at the hospital, the cat got out and your parents weren’t able to go looking for him because of their party guests, so you’ll have to do it.

So when this kind of craziness isn’t just the story of your day, but of a YEAR, what does that mean? And how can a person move forward from that with a good attitude?

 

Well, this is the kind of question that dogs are waaaaay better than people at answering. You see, we mutts have none of your intricate sense of time. We live moment-to-moment, not thinking about the future or the past any more than we have to. (Now yes, you’ll hear stories about dogs who know what time to go meet their human child at school, but that’s because we have a great connection to nature, and can tell when it’s a particular time of day. But even those dogs haven’t been spending hours worrying, “Hmm, will I have time to chase that squirrel and still be able to make it across town to be at the school by 3:15?” We just don’t have that kind of brain.)

So the idea of a year means something completely different to us than to you. For us, we know that it means something that the weather’s kind of like it was, and the sun sets at a particular part of the horizon, and certain smells come out of the yards around us. But we never think about accomplishments, earnings, grades… any of that.

So when I see Handsome all concerned, I just look at him as hard as I can, till he figures it out.

And what I’m trying to get him to figure out is…

 

• Years don’t really exist. Yes, the Earth gets back to the relationship to the sun it was a certain time ago, but years are a human-brain concept. So are months, weeks, days, hours, and milliseconds. They don’t have any actual meaning in reality. So the idea that he hasn’t accomplished by December thirty-first what he thought he would the last time it was December thirty-first is… absolutely pointless to me!
• Big accomplishments take as long as they take. No more and no less. And once they’re done, no one really thinks about what got in the way of their making. How long did it take Shakespeare to write Hamlet? Did Rembrandt paint The Night Watch without being interrupted, or did things get in his way? Did any of The Beatles catch a cold while working on Revolver, and so had to postpone recording? Which of the Harry Potter books did J.K. Rowling have the most trouble in her life while writing? I have no idea of any of these. And if I did, it wouldn’t matter!
• And biggest of all, while you humans focus on certain accomplishments, you might be ignoring the other ones you actually achieve. To use my example above, is that paper for school really a greater act than the other things you did that day? What if it turns out your friend was so upset about that crush that they were going to do something self-destructive that would have ruined their life, but your talking cooled them down? What if, in cleaning that garage, you came across a leaking can of gasoline that could have been responsible for your home burning to ash? And don’t you know your little brother will remember your care and kindness for years after those school assignments have been forgotten? And beyond that, on a more selfish level, if your goals have been set back by fighting an illness, and you get better, but you find out about someone else somewhere who actually died of that illness, doesn’t that mean that you accomplished something huge? Something they weren’t lucky enough to achieve?

 

So what I want is for Handsome to look at this year in a different way. Sure, he didn’t get those things he was hoping for done in the time he’d planned. But instead, he accomplished hundreds of other things. And accomplishing hundreds of things is a pretty big accomplishment – even if they weren’t what he wanted!

 

What about you? Are you bummed out that you’re facing a Hanukkah without a job? Christmas without a boyfriend? Milad un Nabi without money in the bank? New Year’s without having lost as much weight as you’d hoped?

Then just for a moment, think of how a dog would look at that situation. It would all be in-the-moment. They’d translate those thoughts to “I don’t have a job and want to get one,” “I don’t have a boyfriend and want to get one,” “I don’t have money and want to get some,” and “I don’t have the body I want, and want to get it.”

Different, isn’t it? See how this way of thinking allows for something good to still happen, rather than just feeling disappointed about failure?

 

Maybe that’s why we’re so much happier in general than you guys, even though you have so much we lack!

 

So am I saying not to be ambitious and goal-oriented? Absolutely not! Use those great human brains of yours and go after what you want. Achieve incredible goals we pups can’t even dream! Aim for deadlines, make New Years Resolutions, demand the most of yourself! Those are what keep you focused, and make those achievements happen.

And when you DO meet a goal, be proud. Know you worked hard to get that, and reward yourself.

 

But when you don’t, just remember… no one ever told you that life could be fully planned. Plans are just one part of life. And things come at us, every one of us, every day, that change those intentions. That’s what makes life frustrating. And exciting.

And how we deal with those obstacles that come at us? Those acts are what define us. Truly tell who we are, and who others are. Much more than those goals and intentions ever can.

 

Like… the way I deal with disappointment (woofing and walking away) versus the way Handsome does (saying bad words, kicking the wall, and thinking about it for days)… That says a lot about both of us. And I’m pretty content with the verdict that puts on me!

 

But don’t give up on him. I’m doing my best to change him. In fact, I’m gonna get him to think just the way I do, by this time next year…

 

Oh no! I’ve just started thinking like him! This isn’t working!

 

But wait… he just stopped ranting, and knelt down and started stroking my ears. Mmmmmmm… that feels good…

Maybe he’s learning to live in the moment a bit too.

 

In fact, maybe, who knows… 2015 could turn out to be a year in which we all learn to see things through others’ eyes a bit more.

Now that’s a resolution even I can sign onto.

 

Love, and Happy New Year!

Shirelle

0 D.B. – a miracle story

D.B. – a miracle story

A couple of years ago, Handsome heard that a woman had died. She was the mother of one of his closest childhood friends, a man he hadn’t been in touch with for longer than he could remember. It made him think about all the great times he’d had with that man when they were boys – laughing so hard in school they couldn’t stop, pulling pranks on their brothers, sneaking out at night… and some things that actually didn’t get them in trouble too!

But as happens so often in life, at some point, their paths diverged. When they were teenagers, Handsome got more withdrawn, more focused on doing well in certain areas, while his friend D.B. got more adventurous. Okay, let’s just say it out loud – Handsome was a Nerd, a Dork! And D.B. started hanging out with a cooler crowd. Living a more interesting life.

And then, after they left high school, things changed even more. D.B. got into a number of bad things, and even fell into some criminal activity to support his addictions to them. He went from the very healthy lifestyle of his childhood into one where a number of his friends died, either from overdosing on drugs, or being murdered by others involved in that world.

 

And then one day, after years of living at what they call “rock bottom,” he found out from a doctor what anyone could have guessed – that he was also going to die, from the damage all these poisons had caused his liver.

And so, D.B. did the hardest thing he’d ever done. He pulled himself together as much as he could, and quit. He quit drinking, quit drugs, quit all of those things. He moved away from his home town, since all the people he knew were still doing those things. He lived in constant pain, and was unable to medicate himself for it at all. And, knowing he didn’t have long to live, he did something amazing – he started taking writing classes at a college. And he wrote and wrote, writing about the people he’d known, the horrible and amazing things he’d seen while in his hellish state. And his biggest hope was to get some of his writings published, so he’d have some legacy, something of his to survive when he died – which could be any day.

 

When he got Handsome’s letter, he was surprised, and phoned him. His voice was so trashed, Handsome didn’t even recognize it. But it was him. And for the next couple of years, they talked often. They’d talk about what they remembered from their childhoods, and about what either knew about publishing (not much, frankly!). And they talked about the different roads they’d taken to get to the places they were.

And each time the talks ended, they’d say ‘goodbye,’ knowing that that might well be the last goodbye they had.

 

But then something happened. Something no one could have predicted. Something the doctors absolutely don’t understand at all: D.B. got better. And a week ago, D.B. phoned Handsome, to say that he and a friend of his would be traveling through Handsome’s part of the world early next year, and he’d love to meet up and spend a day together. The doctors had given him a clean bill of health! Now of course, his liver is still very damaged, and he could have a turn for the worse any time. Probably will. But right now, he’s okay. He credits all his health to “Prayer and Karma,” though his much-improved diet must have helped too.

But do you know why he and his friend will be traveling? Not to visit Handsome, or to go sightseeing. They’re traveling because his friend thinks he has a gold mine! They’re going to search for gold!

 

For years, D.B. lived in a world of hopelessness, of self-destructive emptiness. And his miserable journey of recovery has led him to this place, where he is going to chase a wild, adventurous dream. Will they have any luck? Will he get rich? Will he live long enough to enjoy anything that he gets? Will he be able to repair any of the relationships he damaged in his years of self-centered addiction?

 

I don’t know. I’m only a dog. But I know what I think of this. I know that for two years, Handsome always looked sad after he spoke with D.B. on the phone, but that this time, he hung up, threw his head back, and laughed.

 

Most of the time, life goes the way it usually goes. But sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes people find it feels good to refuse their hunger’s request, and fast for weeks; sometimes one day’s worth of oil burns for eight; sometimes an extra-bright star burns and a baby is born to rise from humility to greatness no one could have imagined. Sometimes the power of Unity and Self-Determination and Collective Economics and Collective Responsibility and Purpose and Creativity and Faith can combine to raise the power of an entire people.

Sometimes, yes, there’s a miracle. You just have to see them when they happen. One should be stopping by our home in about a month. And how cool is that!

 

Happy Eid, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Christmas, and, yes, Holiday Season, to all of you. May your faith in the amazing that can happen anytime glow just a little brighter in this majestic new year.

 

 

1 The Devils You Know … how to face reunions

The Devils You Know … how to face reunions

When I head out to a dog park, I have a lot of agendas. First, I just want to feel the freedom of running around an open area without a leash. But then I like to seek out the good smells, and see if any people have dropped anything tasty to eat that no dog has snatched up yet (I know, the odds of this happening are virtually impossible, but we pooches are eternal hopers!). And then, my favorite part, I check out the dogs.

Just like you, we pups greet each other by expressing curiosity. You humans might ask, “How are you?” when you meet, while we inquire, “What have you been doing?” And my favorite, “What have you been eating?!” And as you know, we do this by sniffing each other’s butts. Something most of you humans find funny, and kind of ridiculous. But it works!

It’s great to know where someone’s been, what they’ve been up to, how they’ve been feeling, and yes, whether or not they got to snack on any hamburgers. And our noses are our most sensitive sensers, so that’s the best way for us to find out.

And while it’s fun to do this with new acquaintances, “Wow, that Samoyed over there had some curry!” what means the most is when I find a friend, a pup I already knew, and can find out what’s new with them. It just means more to me.

Now is this because that dog I knew is better than another dog? Not necessarily. It is nice that I know I can trust them (or that I can’t! Ever heard that old line about “better the devil you know than the devil you don’t?” It’s kind of good to know which dogs are likely to bite if you get too playful!), and might have a sense of how they like to play. But it’s more than that; I just like finding out about the pooches I know. It’s exciting to me, to learn about what adventures they’ve had, what about them is the same, and what’s changed.

I find that humans are the same way. If you walk into a party, and the room is full of strangers, but you see one friend, you’re almost certain to head straight to the one you know. It’s comfortable, and easier than trying to start a conversation with someone new. But also, you’re likely to have a deeper experience. Think about it, if you meet someone new, you’re going to have pretty shallow chit-chat as you size up what they’re like. Whereas you could walk up to that old friend and instantly start talking about how each of you felt about the news about your mutual acquaintance, or what happened at your school. The exchange isn’t exactly better, but it’s usually more.

What fascinates me about this is that you humans are so often frightened to meet up with your old cronies – especially when it comes to Reunions. Whether it’s of family, or people they went to school with years ago, people seem to worry that they’re going to be judged or disliked. “Oh, I don’t want to go, my mean cousin will be there,” or “I’ve put on twenty pounds and don’t want them to see me like this.” While the funny thing is that, since everyone there feels the same, most likely everyone else is worried about themselves, and no one is judging the person who’s worrying so much.

But it’s actually even more ironic. I see humans meet up with people they knew years ago, when they were growing up, who they were never close to – but they’re THRILLED to see each other. Why? Because they shared experiences. They are so happy to re-join someone who knew the world they knew, who lived in that reality. Who cares that you weren’t super-close? What matters is that both of you were there.

Then this can get kind of funny too, when people who simply couldn’t stand each other meet up at these things. The bully who pulled your underwear up in front of your crush, or the nerd who aced every test and so kept your grades lower than you wanted, or the cheat who dishonestly beat you out for the basketball team. You’d think you’d hate these people for life, but instead, you see them, and your heart just expands! You actually feel love for that person! How in the world can that happen?!

Well, I’d argue, it’s what I was saying about sniffing under tails. That person might have been a weenie when they were younger, and they might still be a weenie (most likely they are!), but you still feel affection for them, because of that background you shared.

So my advice is, when that family reunion invitation shows up, or when the time for that get-together of your classmates rolls around, don’t look for an excuse to skip it. Head on in – even though you’re all loaded up with failures and extra weight and all that. Magic can happen, and often does.

 

Which leads me to an especially crazy thought. As I’ve just described, it’s really exciting to meet up with dogs I know. But I get excited by pooches all the time anyway. When I’m in the back seat of Handsome’s car, and we drive past humans, I might look at them, but it doesn’t affect me much. But when I see a dog, I freak out; my heart rate kicks up, I start barking (usually right in Handsome’s ear – he doesn’t care for that much), and I lose all sense of propriety. Because I see that dog as “one of us.”

And, as I described above, you humans get excited about seeing the people you know, even if you’d thought you wouldn’t. For the same reason.

Now, I want you to try to picture something. What if you tried to have a little bit of what I have when we drive?

Imagine if every person you met, for the rest of your life (or at least for today), you looked at as someone you share something with. Imagine you could have that heart-growth with a stranger, because you both are on that same piece of Earth at that same moment, or because you both were babies once, or because you both are humans who have loved, have cried, have laughed so hard you peed, and have lost someone you’ll never get over.

Now, imagine that there’s something about that person you hate. Maybe you’re on the opposite sides of a bad conflict. Maybe your ancestors and theirs did horrible things to each other – or maybe it was just one of yours doing horrible things to the other’s. Maybe you passionately disagree about what your country’s leaders should be doing. Maybe that other person has said horrible things about your race or your religion or your rights.

And yet… it’s still true. You share much, much more than you differ. And maybe, if you can look at that person with some interest, some excitement, some love about that, it’ll inspire them to see you that way too. Just a little.

And maybe then, the whole world will be just a little bit more like a family, or a party, or a Reunion.

 

Think about that word: Reunion. Becoming one, again. It’s a pretty beautiful concept.

 

Or better yet, maybe if you humans can do this, you’ll become more like a… Dog Park! And believe me, there’s NOWHERE more fun than that! What a future you could have!

Anyway, it’s just an idea.

 

Cheers,

Shirelle

6 The Best That You Can Do …how to live with your strengths, and weaknesses…

The Best That You Can Do …how to live with your strengths, and weaknesses…

Most of you know I was named after a singing group. There’s a reason for that: you see, my human, Handsome, just loves music. He’s always got a song going through his head, and usually is singing something or has music playing on a machine. I, like all dogs, have fantastic hearing, but, because of him, as well as the bugs and squirrels and skateboards I can hear from far away, I’m usually hearing guitars and trumpets and drums and singing from close by.

Handsome also tends to get on “kicks.” He’ll go through weeks listening only to some new singer, or some old opera, or become completely obsessed with the works of one great musician and not want to listen to anyone else for weeks.

Recently he’s been on a kick about a brilliant songwriter named Burt Bacharach. You might have heard of him – his most popular stuff came out way back in the 1960s and early 70s (there was even a running joke of him appearing in the retro “Austin Powers” movies), but his tunes show up still all the time. They’re not exactly rock and roll, not specifically soul, not quite jazz… you can only categorize them as Bacharach.

What pulled Handsome in to this obsession was the intricacy of Bacharach’s recordings. On the surface, they just sound like great, bright, catchy tunes. But if you listen closely, there is such incredible detail – the instrumentations are amazing, the timing changes lots within a song (something very rare in pop music), and the singing is often of a range very few vocalists can achieve. It’s like if one of the great classical composers started writing for the pop charts.

I used the word “bright” up there. His songs even conjure up colors in people’s minds (not in mine – we pups don’t see colors). A big brash sound with tons of instruments will suddenly go quiet for a soft trombone solo or a few notes on a piano, and you can’t help but see pictures. The great singers he had do his songs (including my namesakes, The Shirelles!) were given the most glorious rhythms, sweeping and witty-sounding melodies, creating a world of sophistication, intelligence, romance, and sexiness – but all in tunes everyone of any age can hear and enjoy.

But then there’s this other, unexpected, thing about those songs. Most of them have words that expose – not bright and sexy feelings – but sadness, loneliness, fear, failure, and especially deep love.   And it’s that mixture, of the brightest of melodies with such poignant lyrics, that make these songs so powerful, and so continually popular.

If you’re intrigued, I’d say to check out the following recordings to start:

• “Baby, It’s You” by The Shirelles
  • This was an early hit for him, and not as complex as he’d get, but it shows the brightness I talk about. And if you listen really closely to the background, you’ll hear one male voice among the females… That’s Bacharach singing!
• “Do You Know the Way to San Jose” by Dionne Warwick
  • This defines the brightness I was talking about. Listen to how the beats change, all the cool instrumentation, and how effortlessly this great singer jumps from low to very very high notes, like me when I wake up to see a cat outside the window – but much smoother!
• “What the World Needs Now is Love” by Jackie DeShannon
  • One of his most famous songs – and a magical example of what I mean by pictures. Just try listening to this beautiful hymn without suddenly seeing that soft trombone when everything stops for it to play those tiny simple notes
• “Casino Royale” by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass
  • The theme song to a very silly movie – not the more recent Daniel Craig one. Here’s Bacharach without words – just an orchestra and a pop/jazz band painting an incredible landscape of sound. Listen to this one loud!

 

So while Handsome has been playing this music all the time, I became fascinated by this mix. You see, these songs are kind of like me. On the outside, I’m the most cheerful, silly, wild dog you’ve ever seen. But on the inside, I’m always thinking about the things you write me questions about – loneliness, fear, worries, etc. Which made me wonder – how did this Bacharach achieve these? What sort of human is he?

So I started to study up about him. He’s a very good-looking man (not as handsome as Handsome, of course, but to my eyes, no one is), and has lived a life of great wealth and popularity, with exciting romances, and even marriages, to beautiful movie stars, and yet – if you watch footage of him – there’s something a bit, well… dorky about him! He’s a little distanced from everyone around him. A little shy. A little obsessive.

And that’s not just in how he looks. People who worked with him talk about how crazy he’d drive them with his perfectionism. Everything had to match exactly the way he’d hear his music in his head, and he wasn’t necessarily nice about telling them so. Most composers write songs to fit particular singers; Bacharach wrote whatever he heard in his head, and then had to go to great lengths to find singers who could possibly sing it (Today, he performs with a group of singers, using two or even three voices to sing as big a range as one of his greatest vocalists could handle). He wrote the score for a hit musical, but was so horrified when he went to a performance and realized he couldn’t control all the musicians all the time that he never did another (though now, fifty years later, he’s saying he’d like to). “Control Freak,” you ask? You bet.

And in his personal life, what did people say about him? That he’s charming, but self-centered, maybe even a little cold. In other words, all that intricacy you hear in his recordings, and all the bright brilliance, is him. But then where did those beautiful words come from?

 

And this is what made me write this article. One simple fact: He never wrote the words to his songs! He only does music. In fact, at one point, when explaining to his ex-wife why he was a caring but distant father, his argument was, “Look, I’m just a piano player!”

He worked with a number of lyricists over the years, but most of his great successes were with a writer named Hal David. David was the complete opposite of Bacharach – a quiet man, devoted to his wife and family, and full of all the tender wisdom those lyrics express. As brilliant a lyricist as Bacharach is a composer, but in a fully different way.

What this means is that these two men knew it. They saw in each other what they each lacked, and valued it. And knew that, mixed together, their strengths could make magic. People often think that the great partnerships are between folks who think alike, but this is the opposite – these guys succeeded because of the incredible electricity that their differences created!

 

So when you go to school, and suffer the pain of doing poorly in one area, while you’re succeeding in another, sure, put some more effort into what you’re weak at. But also, be sure to remember: no one is great at everything. And, throughout your life, if you can devote yourself what you’re best at, while acknowledging what you’re not, and honoring those qualities in others, you’re on the road to a lot of success and happiness.

It’s hard. I know. It drives me nuts that I can’t climb a tree like stupid cats do! And I do try, believe me! But then again, I don’t know any cats who help girls win boyfriends, or help mothers talk with their kids! And maybe, just maybe, each of us in this world is helping co-write some great composition that we don’t even know about.

 

So that’s what I get out of listening to all these songs endlessly over the last couple of months: Respect what you’re great at, find your true voice, and dive into your passions. And yet be honest enough to encourage others in what you just don’t do all that well.

And if you can do that, perhaps you’ll achieve something as great and fascinating and addictive as Bacharach and David’s songs are, and will always be. At the very least you’ll know you’re doing, as another of Bacharach’s lyricists wrote, “The Best That You Can Do.”

And that’s not too bad a way to live.

0 The 50,000-Volt Pond — a few thoughts on corporal punishment

The 50,000-Volt Pond — a few thoughts on corporal punishment

I don’t understand the rules of any organized sport (unless you consider Fetch organized), but I do love to watch humans play them. Let’s face it, most of the time, you guys are really boring in your actions. Walk to the car, get in. Walk inside, sit in front of a computer. Occasionally thrill us by going into the kitchen or picking up a leash, but otherwise… Yawwwwwwn.

But when you play a sport, suddenly you’re fascinating. Running, tumbling, banging into each other, and of course throwing or hitting balls (which we always love). It’s when you guys kind of act like US! So I have to say, I have a very strong bias in favor of athletes – they’re my kind of humans!

I also am a big fan of a lot of the values that sports give to kids. Teamwork, health, learning to accept loss and victory with humble dignity – these are great virtues.

So it’s always sad for me when athletes look bad. Recently, there have been a few of these cases here in the U.S. Camera footage of one infuriated football player punching his fiancée – just heartbreaking. And another superb player getting in trouble for having punished his four-year-old son by whipping him with a “switch,” which is an old word for a thin, flexible branch from a tree, usually with the leaves all pulled off. And when he was asked about it, he said that this was the way he had been raised, so he had seen nothing wrong with doing it.

Now I don’t know any of these men, and certainly don’t know the exact circumstances of these incidents. So can’t speak about them. But as a dog, I do know quite a bit about corporal punishment (which means punishing by doing something to someone’s body – whether a slap or a spank, or things far more severe).

 

You see, we dogs do corporal punishment! If you see a mother raising her pups, she’ll teach her young, who she loves more than even she can imagine, by giving them little bites when they’re naughty. And it works – the pups learn not to do those things. So it only makes sense that, for centuries, humans have trained us with swats and beatings. Because it’s worked, right?

Well, yes and no…

 

Here’s the thing about punishment. The real goal of training a dog or a young child is Discipline. And the word Discipline comes from the same old word as Disciple; it refers to Learning. You want that kid to learn not to cross the street without an adult; you want that dog to learn not to nip people’s heels for fun. And these are very worthwhile lessons! But any time you teach a child or a dog, their brains are large enough that they’re learning more than one lesson.

Of course not all brains are that big. For example, my human friend Handsome has a tank with some goldfish. These beauties have learned that, when he walks up to the tank, he’s probably going to feed them, so they swim up to the surface, as close as they can get to him, and start chomping their mouths, hoping some food will drop in. They’re not expecting anything else from him – not love or information or entertainment. Just food. And that’s fine – as their brains are a bit smaller than the goo that forms on the inner corner of my eye!

But when Handsome feeds me, there’s a lot more going on. I feel loved, seeing his care. He enjoys my excitement at the feeding, and I sense that too. Usually he’ll lightly pet my head or back while I start to eat, but being careful not to do anything that would distract me, as he knows that’s bothersome to any animal who still connects to their wild self (Some general advice here – unless you know a dog very well, best to just leave it alone when it’s eating; even a nice one might snap if it thinks you might be considering stealing its food!).

 

And similarly, when Handsome has trained me, there was TONS going on in me. I was getting attention, but I was also feeling judged and nervous. If I did what he wanted, I expected to get some sort of validation – petting, loving words, maybe a treat. And when I didn’t, it felt bad to hear him say “No,” and know he was disappointed in me, even if just for a moment. In other words, it’s not just that I learned to sit or stay, I also learned something about myself, and about him, and about our relationship. Every time we did it.

Think of what happens in a schoolroom. Sure, you learn something about Math or History. But you also learn that the teacher is happy when you sit politely; you learn what irritates the kid next to you; you learn which teachers like their students to offer opinions in class, and which really don’t.

But all these examples are about learning when there’s teaching clearly going on. What happens when someone misbehaves in their normal life, and gets a consequence? Well, again, they’re going to learn more than one thing. Sure they’ll learn that they shouldn’t have done the thing they weren’t supposed to do. But they’ll also learn how someone else reacted. And they’ll learn about how that person thinks about them. And they’ll learn about their own value, and how they have the right to treat others.

 

So when a dog mother teaches her young by biting them lightly, they’re learning not to misbehave, but also learning, gently, that other dogs bite when they’re not happy with us. A very valuable lesson!

But what if that mother angrily jumped onto her puppy and bit him so hard she injured his leg? What would he learn then – besides not to do what he did? Probably not to trust his mother! And that he’s in constant danger from other dogs. And that he’s not worthy of being treated well by anyone.

 

And this is the problem with corporal punishment by humans. It’s been around for years because it has worked to teach certain lessons, but more recently, people have come to realize that there are WAY better ways to teach these things! Giving a young child a “time out” where they have to sit by themselves in a corner is a great way to cool them down when they’re acting out, and teaches them that their parent is in charge, as well as the lesson they need to learn. Some child experts even point out that, when a kid is young, if a time out isn’t enough, the parent can just use silly threats of property, like “If you don’t stop that yelling, I’m going to take a pair of your socks away from your dresser,” and it works! The kid is still experiencing the parent having power and setting the boundaries, which the kid needs to see.

(It’s important to always remember, with both children and dogs, that a big part of that little brain wants the grownup to set that strong boundary, so the little one can know for sure that they’re safe in a rational world)

 

Meanwhile, if a human responds to a dog’s misbehavior by hitting the pooch, what are the lessons? “Humans are dangerous.” “Your human doesn’t love you.” “You deserve to be hit.” Or even… and this is very common… “Human hands are dangerous!” (So guess what happens when a friendly person tries to pet that dog’s head?! You guessed it… CHOMP!)

It used to be very common for humans to train dogs by hitting them with a newspaper.   But those same humans were then often surprised when they walked into their living rooms to find the sports and weather in tatters all over the floor. Why would their loving dog destroy that night’s Times?

(I’ll tell you why – because that mutt was SMART! “I’ll chew that paper up before it starts in on ME!”)

 

Similarly, when an adult slaps or spanks, or really beats, a child, the kid learns so many lessons no one would want them to learn. “My daddy hates me because I was bad.” “I don’t have the right to my own body; it’s something for others to do what they please to.” “The world is a dangerous place; even the tree in my yard is a threat.” And worst, “I cannot trust my parents.”

(And to bring everything full-circle, another lesson a kid could learn is “The appropriate way to express anger is by hurting someone physically.” Which could mean that that kid might end up becoming a man who punches his fiancée!)

 

Now sometimes you’ll hear humans say, like that football player, that this is how they were raised, and so it’s how they want to raise their kids too. But I’ll argue on that count too. You see, I find, when people say that, that if you ask them more about why they want to continue this ‘tradition,’ they’ll eventually say “My parents worked so hard to make sure I had the opportunities they didn’t, and I don’t want to dishonor them by saying they raised me wrongly.”

But you see, changing how you discipline your kids isn’t insulting your parents. It’s the opposite. You’re just carrying on the great job they did of making sure you give your kids a better life than you had! Your parents weren’t wrong to discipline you in the best way they knew. But you would be wrong to not change to a better way of disciplining, now that you’ve learned it!

(Think of it this way – how would you feel about a doctor who prescribed medicine that wasn’t as good as a more recently-invented pill, and that had more and worse side-effects, just because they wanted to honor the doctor who’d treated them with it thirty years ago?!)

 

But what about when the parent loses their temper? Well, when I was a puppy, and Handsome was training me, I was absolutely horrible. Chewing and biting all the time, a total pain! He loved me, but he also found me constantly irritating and maddening. One day, he came out of taking a shower, to find that I’d chewed up one of his favorite possessions, and it was all over the floor. Fully enraged, he picked me up and threw me into our back yard. But the second he’d done it, he felt terrible, and ran to me, checking to see if I was all right, and covering me with love.

You see, he’d never struck me before that. He had worked very hard to make sure that I would trust him completely. And here, he really had screwed up!

But you know what? Because this was the only time he did that, I didn’t lose my trust. I knew I’d done something that had hurt him, and I felt bad about it. And I knew that he would never hit me, and that he would most likely never throw me again either! It was okay.

Because hitting me was something I knew he simply wouldn’t do.

 

Here’s my favorite way of looking at this. Being a child, or a puppy, is like walking out into a new landscape every day. And imagine you walked out one morning, and found a big beautiful pond, covered in ice. And you thought how fun it would be to walk out onto that frozen space. Now of course, you wouldn’t just plop out there, though. You’d gently test the ice with the end of your foot. And if it held, you’d test it by pressing a bit harder. And if it still stayed firm, maybe you’d walk fully onto it and stomp up and down – knowing that, if that ice was going to break, you wanted it to happen where the pond was shallow and you were close to dry land.

And imagine if, when you stomped, instead of the ice holding or breaking, you were suddenly zapped with 50,000 volts of electricity, like a police taser, because someone had set this up to keep people from walking on the ice!!!

What would you learn?

 

Well, you sure would learn not to walk out there onto the ice. But you’d also learn that ice is dangerous, and that ponds are dangerous. I imagine you’d never dare to learn to skate, or to play hockey. And you’d likely never know the fun of fishing, or swimming in a pond, or even feeding ducks who might live there. You might even learn to distrust all of nature.

 

Well, that’s what corporal punishment is like. It teaches the right lesson, but with all sort of wrong ones. And it can lead to a profound sense of distrust. In ways that the punisher, the disciplinarian, often doesn’t even know.

 

So my advice, as always, to all parents, and dog-lovers, is simple: Do the best you can, forgive yourself for the mistakes you’re guaranteed to make, but overall, just come from a place of love and enjoyment. Let that bratty kid and that rotten puppy know that the sight of them is the greatest joy of your life. And, clumsily and fitfully, you will raise someone absolutely wonderful, who will shock you with all they achieve.

 

Who knows? Maybe they’ll even grow up to become a great, and happy, professional football player!

8 Us vs. We… a plea for a new way of thinking…

Us vs. We… a plea for a new way of thinking…

In my short time on this planet, I have rarely seen so much awfulness going on between people. In the cradle of civilization, the home of some of the world’s most beautiful and lasting religions, some people have been shooting missiles randomly into populated areas, and others blowing up places where they know children are possibly being held; in another ancient area, tensions are so high that it appears some people shot a commercial airliner out of the sky because they thought that it might be a plane holding the people they hate; all over the world, dictators and armies are ordering killings, beheadings, live burials – it’s all too shocking for a dog to take. And closer to my home, voices of hatred are screaming at hungry children for trying to better their lives, police are using military weapons against protesters…

 

We dogs want to look up to you humans, but right now, that’s pretty hard to do.

 

Now let me explain about where I’m coming from. We dogs don’t have a good understanding of history. We live very much in the present. You guys are much better at understanding how something that happened six years ago, or sixty years ago, or six hundred years ago, or six thousand years ago (!), applies to what is going on now.

And don’t get me wrong – I understand well that everyone wants, and deserves, to protect themselves. I’m a very good fighter, and if anybody – squirrel, cat, dog, or human – tries to come into my yard or mess with me or my guy, they are going to face some very sharp teeth that stem from a very muscular jaw! I would never tell anyone that they didn’t have the same right I have for self-protection.

 

But the way some humans are behaving shows me that their bigger brains, and they way they’re thinking, aren’t working very well right now, are they? Well, I have a thought. It might get you a bit angry, but I’d like you to try to think about it.

 

You all look alike to me. You’re all taller than I am, and taller than you are wide, most of you walk upright, you wear fabrics over your bodies, even your skin colors are far more similar to each other’s than those we have (have you ever seen any person with skin the bright red-orange color of an Irish Setter? Of a jet black Labrador Retriever? Of a purely white Maltese? No, you guys are all variations of dark brown to pinkish beige). And while I know certain individuals well (I can recognize Handsome a block away), I usually can’t tell you guys apart. She’s a poor Hindu; he’s a rich Shiite; that one’s British and the other is French; over there is a liberal and next to them are a bunch of staunch conservatives, he’s Goth she’s a Hippie… Do you think I can tell any of that?!

 

At the same time, although we dogs are all shapes and sizes and colors and such, we can always tell the difference between a dog and another species. Similarly, you can very easily tell a human from a fish or an ape or a reptile.

So what if people, all of you people, started to think of yourselves, not as a member of a nation, or a follower of a religion… but as what I see: PEOPLE.

I don’t mean for anyone to give up your nationality, or certainly your religion. But to acknowledge that, besides what else you are, you’re also people.

 

And if you do that, then (and here’s the hard part, I know), can you start to look at yourself as one member of a seven-billion-member club? You’re still part of your family, your school, your town, your group of friends… but you’re also part of a group called The Human Race.

 

And then, here’s my crazy idea: If you do, then suddenly, maybe you can lose all this “Us versus Them” mindset, that gets everyone so hot-headed. And instead, you realize, It’s All… Us.

It’s so easy for viewers of a sports event to say “We won” or “We lost,” even though they never so much as touched the field or the ball. Now, what if, after cheering like crazy for your team, you walked away from the game and were able to say, “We played well. Both sides. We humans came out of this looking very noble.”

And what if, when a tragedy occurs where an unarmed young person is shot by a police officer, you were able to say “We need to look into this more, and see what we were doing wrong, so that we can make sure it doesn’t happen again. We don’t want to take a chance on our kids getting into trouble, or certainly on wrongly killing any of our kids.” You see where I’m going? It’s not that one side is right and another is wrong, it’s a mindset saying that We need to change, because something awful happened.

 

And I won’t just point the finger at you guys. I’ll join into this myself. I am a dog. We dogs have done some of the most amazing acts ever. We have sniffed out disaster sites and saved buried victims, we’ve located bombs and mines, we’ve protected our families endlessly, and we’re the cutest and funniest beings ever. We also have unfairly bitten strangers, we’ve been very mean to cats, we’ve peed all over very nice carpets, and… yes, we’ve even killed innocent people.   We have done all these things, and can easily do them again.

Now if I can admit that I’m part of a group that did all those things, then can’t you admit that your group created every great work of art, has built cities and invented airplanes, has fed the world through agriculture… and also that your group has polluted the atmosphere, killed far more beings than anyone else could come close to, and is the only species to ever call someone lying names on social media.

As these battles rage, we’ll hear people argue about how one side deserves to live more, because they invented lots of medicines, or wrote the greatest novels ever. No, All Of You cured Polio, All Of You created “War and Peace,” and “Mockingjay!” No one else could have done those things, just you humans. The good and the bad. You guys wrote “Happy” and you built concentration camps. Both are part of you. All of you.

 

But now I’ll spread my view even a bit wider. What if I say that both you and I are Mammals! And therefore I’m acknowledging that I am a member of a group that not only bit a nice old lady, but also fired random missiles into civilized areas on a regular basis. And I am a member of a group that retaliated by firing back, including at places where OUR children were. Yes, we mammals have been killing our own children, far too much and for far too long.

And we shot down an airliner. And we sent our army to attack and arrest little kids who were looking for a new home. And we have been decimating our fellow citizens all over Syria and Iraq and Nigeria and…

 

We need to change. We need to stop this. And maybe, if we can start to think of ourselves as “We,” we can.

 

Please note, I’m not suggesting we stop battling. There are so many legitimate “Them”s that we need to fight against! Starvation, Drought, Global Warming, Ebola, AIDS, Mental Illness, Human Trafficking, just to name a few… and FLEAS! Rotten nasty disease-ridden biters! Let’s all get together against THEM!

 

But we can’t, as long as we keep wasting our time looking at each other as Us and Them.

 

I know that this idea of mine doesn’t, in itself, solve one single issue. It doesn’t give anyone freedom, it doesn’t block up a tunnel where murderous weapons are transferred, it doesn’t make anyone safe in their home.

But it’s a start. And I know my doggy brain isn’t the best, but as far as I can tell, it’s a start in the only direction that makes any sense.

 

You see, if someone in your family was treating you, in your opinion, unfairly, I don’t think you’d send a missile to kill them. You’d find another way to get your point across. And if someone in your family did do something violent at you, and was then keeping weapons in a room with one of your children, I don’t think you’d blow that room up. You’d find another way.

 

And that’s all I’m asking for. Thinking of other ways.

Not for anyone in the world to allow themselves to be oppressed or attacked; no good comes from giving up. But if more of us could just stop looking at our problems as Us versus Them, and instead ask what We can do… maybe we could get a start at finding those “other ways” to solve our problems. Again, our problems.

 

And again, I know this isn’t an instant fix. Good heavens, when someone’s been attacked, it’s got to be nearly impossible for them to turn around and see their attacker as a brother or sister. But if the rest of us can look at the situation that way, and try to help from that point of view, maybe we can move the situation forward.

 

Think about this: Thirty-six years ago, two nations in the Middle East, who’d been enemies since before the pyramids were built, got together (through a supportive outside mediator) and signed a peace agreement. In the last few years, one of those nations has had two revolutions, but that peace agreement has still lasted. To the degree that that nation is the mediator today for a new peace agreement to help our their former arch-enemy. Because they’re seeing both sides of this current conflict as fellow beings, and peace as their greatest self-interest.

 

If that is possible, then how is anything not?

 

While I was writing this, a song was going through my head. And it made me think about the man who wrote it. He was born into a relatively poor area of a poor town, which he will always be associated with. He was best-known as a member of a small group of four men. He was a husband, he was a father. He was associated with one country, and then left it for another, and then got associated with yet another through his second marriage. He was all these things, and yet, more than anything else, he was an individual. Arrogant, funny, loving, cruel, and brilliantly creative, he was all himself. He never would have allowed anyone to consider themselves the same as him. And yet, he wrote:

            You might say I’m a dreamer

            But I’m not the only one

            I hope someday you’ll join us

            And the world will live as one.

 

Doesn’t that sound nice? Let it roll around in your brain for a minute. Really nice.

And also note that, in that last line, Mr. Lennon implied something else. Maybe if the world can be “as one,” it will manage to keep on… living.

 

Barking Like Crazy, but Praying for Peace,

Shirelle

0 Sniffing New Trees! …the importance of travel

Sniffing New Trees! …the importance of travel

(originally published August, 2011)

 

I tend to be a homebody. When I was a puppy, I’d do everything I could to dig or climb or break out of my yard, as I was so curious and excited about the world. But since I’ve grown up, I’m more interested in hanging out at home and protecting the house from squirrels and cats! So much so that even if Handsome forgets to lock the gate when he leaves, I tend to be sitting here calmly when he gets home.

 

But sometimes, Handsome takes me on a trip. And oh, do I love that! You see, every time he leaves me at home, it hurts my heart. I know he cares about me, but it always feels like he’s saying “I’m doing something more important than you. And you’re not good enough to be there.” I know that’s not what he’s saying! He tells me over and over – he’s going to work, where dogs aren’t allowed; or he’s going to a restaurant, where dogs aren’t allowed; or he’s going somewhere where I’d be bored or have to be chained up or something… I know he would love to take me everywhere he goes, but he just can’t. Still, it hurts.

 

So those days, those magnificent splendid exceptional days, when he opens the back door to his car and yells out “In ya go!” I am so excited I can barely contain myself. Somewhere deep down, I know it might even be something I don’t like much – like going to the veterinarian for a shot, or even (I shudder to say it) a groomer! But most of the time, he’s taking me on Adventure!

 

There are a few dog parks where we live, and those are absolute joy. But then sometimes we go much farther. For example, there’s a beach that’s many hours away, where we go on hikes for hours. I’ve written on here about how I hate baths and showers, and don’t even like rain, but when it comes to jumping in water, like to leap into ocean waves chasing sticks, oh that’s heaven! And beaches have so many smells and birds and funny little shellfish that crawl in and out of the sand, and it’s one place I can run and run and run… till I sleep the whole way home in the car!

 

And just as good, or even better, sometimes we go to the mountains! How clear and brisk the air is there, and how beautiful it all looks. At the beach you can see all the way to the end of the world, but in the mountains it feels like you can see even further! And how many new plants and animals there are, including the ones we don’t see but I can smell, like Elk and Deer and (uh oh) Mountain Lions! (I try to avoid those folks)

 

I never get tired of these trips, or of the joy of knowing I’m welcome on them. But you know what, I also always learn stuff. Maybe it’s just new smells and sounds, but often I actually learn something I can use at home. I grasp what’s special about where I live, which one forgets when they just live there all the time. I learn better ways of doing things. And I also learn what’s really universal (for example, people everywhere are annoyed when I roll in something smelly and then climb into their car; not just my guy!).

 

But if I were a human, oh how I’d love to travel way more. To take buses, trains, boats, and even airplanes, and to visit other countries and continents! To see how other people live, to meet other people. To realize that there are different ways of doing almost everything. To hear music you never heard, to see beautiful people who look like no one you’ve ever met, to hear the glorious rhythms of other languages. Oh I’d never want to stop!

 

And how much it helps everyone! I’m a big fan of Democracy, which is the kind of government where the people get to vote for the leaders and policies. But isn’t it funny that so many people are voting for things every day when they really don’t understand the alternatives! Wouldn’t it be great if everyone in the world could live in another country or two, and then bring home some ideas of what worked there, and improve their homeland’s systems? (And don’t you know that if everyone could do that, we’d reduce wars everywhere, as people would have better understandings of why others are the way they are, and probably be nicer to each other!)

 

But I know that can’t happen. Most people can’t afford to travel nearly as much as they’d like to, especially with the tough economy going on everywhere now. But that doesn’t mean you can’t travel at all…

 

Isn’t it still travel if you find out about a place in your home town that you’ve never been to before, and go there? Maybe a museum or a really great park? What’s the closest city to yours – could you go there for a weekend and see things you’ve never seen? Even making a new friend at school – anything where you’re moving out of your usual “back yard” and experiencing something new.

 

So does TV count? Not really. It’s great to watch shows about other places, and I’m all for it, but it’s the experience that really defines travel, and you can’t have that on your living room couch.

 

Well, actually I can… you see, I’m not supposed to climb on it. Ever. So if I do, I’m kind of daring to go into a dangerous new land, full of mystery and suspense… and a great likelihood of getting yelled at by my best friend!!

 

Happy Travels!

Shirelle

 

 

18 The Bright Side …the nature of courage

The Bright Side …the nature of courage

We hear a lot about courage. Legends and songs have told of it from the beginning of time, with heroic deeds in the face of terrible odds, or of willingness to suffer great pains for a noble goal.

We sometimes get to feel courage in ourselves. For example, when I hear a stranger coming to the door of our house, and I growl and bark at them, not knowing how big or fierce they might be.

And sometimes we get to see it firsthand.

 

Now I know that there are millions of incredible acts of courage in the world every day. People bravely working to save their children, facing horrors in battle, or sacrificing their own lives for the betterment of all.

But while I am aware of those cases, those aren’t what I mean by “firsthand.” There are other situations, maybe quieter ones, which, because we see them up close, knock us out with their awesome power.

I want to tell you about the bravest people I’ve ever seen.

 

First, there was just a happy couple, one of the happiest I’ve ever had the pleasure to know.   They met in college, fell in love, and got married. They were very nice, had some struggles, handled them well. Over time they had four children – each funny, brash, and very unique. And they had dogs – lots of really fun dogs. It looked like the perfect life. Because, well, basically it was!

Then about a year ago, the husband had a tiny stroke (which happens when the brain gets either too much or too little blood. It can be very damaging, but in this case, he seemed fine).

And then about a week later, he had a seizure. That’s when there’s too much nerve activity in the brain, and can make a person tremble or even go into convulsions. What was odd about this seizure, though, is that it didn’t, like most, go on for a few minutes. It lasted over a day.

Doctors did MRIs and X-rays, and found what they were scared of – that he had a small tumor in his brain. And while they could treat it, it looked like it might be cancer.

Now lots of people would just get depressed and give up hope when they heard that. But not this guy. He’d always worked in the medical field, and was quite happy to trust in the brilliance of doctors. So he was treated with all the best science had to offer. And it helped.

But not enough. The tumor came back.

Now while all this was going on, something else very big was happening: one of their daughters had gotten engaged to the man of her dreams. And while her dad seemed fine, everyone was worried about whether he’d be able to give her away at her wedding.

 

So jump forward a few months. The wedding is set, and he is ready to walk his little angel down the aisle. But the night before, he’s supposed to give a speech at their rehearsal dinner. He’s fine, doing great. Except that the tumor has damaged the part of his brain that thinks of words.

You know that way you’ll get when you’re telling someone about something and you just can’t think of a word that you know perfectly well, when you say it’s “on the tip of my tongue?” Well that’s what he was like, but way more than usual. And it wouldn’t be words that one would normally have to think about, but simple, everyday words that no one ever forgets – words like “chair” or “cloud” or their best friends’ names.

So how could he give a speech? Well, remember my saying what a great couple they are? He got up to speak, but with his wife standing next to him. And she knew him so well that she could tell, with no hesitation, when he was going to forget a word, and what the word would be. So together, they gave a beautiful presentation, something along the lines of…

“Thank you all for coming to this beautiful”

“Dinner”

“Where we get to celebrate the”

“Marriage”

“Of our daughter to her great”

“Fiancee.”

And so on.

 

And everyone there just stared, at the beauty of this amazing moment.

 

And when he walked his girl down the aisle the next night, so proud, beaming, no one’s eyes were dry.

But then something else happened that made those almost forgettable.

 

An hour or two later, when it was time for the dancing to begin, the bride took the microphone and told everyone gathered there, “I want to thank you all for being here for my marriage to the love of my life. But he wasn’t the first love of my life. The first one was the one who got me here, and who taught me to love all sorts of things, from basketball to dumb jokes to musicals. And I’d like my first dance to be with my first love.”

And she reached out her hand to her father. He stood up, took her in his arms, and the music began – not a romantic ballad or a song about fathers and daughters, but instead, a silly, naughty tune they both adored, about always looking on the bright side of life, even in the face of death.

And then, with these almost blasphemous words around them, they danced with wild free passion, as silly and effusive as I am when someone holds a lamb bone up in the air for me to jump. And, with joy in his heart and love in his eyes, that dad sang along with every word of that song.

No one who was there will ever forget that moment. No matter what happens to their brains; it will be embedded into their hearts forever.

This was about eight months ago. He has fought valiantly ever since, never losing his cheerful optimism and canine-level friendliness. The family have gone on trips, cheered their favorite basketball team like crazy, truly lived. And at times it really has felt like the miracles everyone was praying for had come to pass.

But then, a few weeks ago, the doctors sat him and his wife down, and gave the awful news: The medicines they’d been using weren’t working, and they were going to stop all treatment.

So once again, the question arose. What would a family do after hearing news like that? What can a family do then? Give up? Fall headlong into depression?

Not this bunch. They decided to… throw the best party ever.

They invited his friends from throughout his life, family members, coworkers – and had everyone bring pictures and funny stories about him to share. This was to be a celebration of all he’d experienced.

And it was glorious. Still in the same condition, of having everything working in his brain except easy word-grasping, he was as humorous, affectionate, and warmhearted as ever. And the love that poured onto him that night was like nothing I’d ever seen. So many stories, so many joking insults. So much him.

And as I watched him get into a car, two hours past his bedtime, and head home, I knew that this was what everyone in the world deserves. A night like this. Where they can be allowed to feel all the love they’ve earned. Which for him was a whole lot.

And now? When the party has been cleaned up and all the guests are gone… what now?

No one knows.

 

With his family surrounding him, he is now in the hands of… whatever you choose to call it. God, nature, the hands of fate, the Alpha-Dog of all Alpha-Dogs…

No one has ever had better energy inside them and around them. But he, and his family, are truly flying on trapezes without a net. And no one knows for how long.

I have seen miracles often, so I know he could have decades left in him. But we can only hope and pray for miracles; we can’t count on them. That’s what makes them miracles.

 

So what this man, this couple, this family, do, is they face every day. They embrace every second they have. They greet the world with excitement and love and gratitude.

 

And this is what I mean by courage. What I saw in this family when they first faced this rotten loathsome disease. What he and his wife showed when going through painful difficult treatments. What everyone at that wedding saw in that speech and that dance. And what you, my dear readers, must have felt when I told you about the celebration party.

 

You see, awful things can happen to any of us, any time. Courage isn’t about experiencing them, or even surviving them. It’s about how you face them when they come.

To pretend nothing’s wrong, or to blame others, or to withdraw from everyone – those are natural and understandable, but they’re not courageous.

While to stand up in the face of disease, damage, and doctors honest enough to say they can’t do anything, and deliver a laugh, a joke, a hug, a “thanks for being here…” That is truly the act of the brave.

 

I write these articles, and run this website, because I find that, with all the brilliance you humans all have, you often miss out on the simple pure understanding of life we dogs can bring. But in this particular case, I have to bow down. This family, this couple, this man… can even teach us pooches a thing or two.

 

Anyone can die. Everyone does eventually. But looking at people like this enlightens us all with something far more amazing:

How to LIVE.

 

Keep it up, Donny.

 

Love,

Shirelle

 

2 Still Loving Each Other Tomorrow … the power of long-term friendship

Still Loving Each Other Tomorrow … the power of long-term friendship

The scariest time of my life, paws down, was the week I spent in a city pound.  I was about three months old, and didn’t know much about the world, but I knew I hated it in there.  I was in a cage with four other puppies, and every day we saw some dogs walk out through one door into a happy new life with cheerful loving humans, but most dogs get walked out through another door, scared and sad, never to come back.

 

I was a feisty pup, and loved romping and wrestling with – and especially biting! – my cagemates.  But when Handsome picked me out to leave with him, I was so overjoyed to be freed, I never even looked back at them.

 

At least not until later.  In my dreams.

 

Ever since, I’ve always been haunted by the question – what ever happened to those friends I had?  Which ones got taken out, like me, into loving homes?  Did any escape?  And, worst of all, were there any who didn’t get to leave, except by that “other door” I mentioned earlier?

 

I’ll never know.  And I can’t imagine that, if I met one of them today, we’d recognize each other.  So the mystery will last as long as I do.

 

I bring this up because one thing you humans get to have, way more than us pooches, is long-term distant friendships.  We have people or dogs we meet at some time, and see again a year or two later (this happens a lot with our humans’ families, for example, whom we’ll encounter fairly regularly in visits), and we’ll remember their smells and who was playful and who wasn’t.  But you guys get to have long friendships that are truly profound.

 

For example, my friend Handsome recently went on a weekend trip with some guys who he met when they were all in first grade together!  They were great friends when they were six years old, and here they were, talking about their jobs, politics, sports, wives, children… (hmmm… I’m not sure if I heard there was ANY conversation about dogs.  That’s annoying!)… all a million miles away from the interests they’d had when they’d originally met.

 

And when Handsome told me about it – and this seems to happen often when he meets up with people he’s known for a long time – what he finds most fascinating about the meeting is always how many ways his friends have changed, and how many ways they’ve stayed the same.  The one who had the best comic book collection when they were nine, and is talking passionately today about what’s right and wrong with the different Batman movies.  The one who was obsessed with animal anatomy as a young child, and today will notice a new bird from across a park.  The one who directed a class play in fifth grade, and is worrying about the future of theater and cinema in the digital age.  And yet, the one who was the worst dresser now wears the most stylish clothes, the one who was the most politically conservative is now the most liberal… it just goes on and on.

 

The way I see it, knowing someone well, and then meeting up with them years, or decades, later, is like being in one of those funhouses with warped mirrors. Where you look at your reflection and see long legs, a tiny torso, a gigantic head, etc. Because some of the qualities those people had long ago have shrunk, and become almost invisible, while others have grown so large as to dominate their lives. Imagine if you’d known, say, Barack Obama as a child. Maybe he’d have had some silly, playful qualities. I’m sure he still does, but we don’t see them much. Maybe he also showed some slight tendency to be a leader, maybe wanting to be the captain of teams when he’d play sports? Well that quality has pretty much become his definition now.

 

When it comes to me, I imagine those puppies in that cage would say that Shirelle (though I hadn’t been named yet) was all about biting – and I really don’t do that much anymore. But that she also liked to try to run. Which became my obsession later. But I’ll bet they would never have seen bratty me as someone who’d spend her day trying to help anyone – what I do here all the time!

 

So try to imagine it for yourself. Look at the friends you have now, and think – what will they be like in ten years? Twenty? Forty?! And what will you be like?   Will you still be as romantic, or optimistic, or cynical as you are now? (That’ll probably depend on how things go for you over the years) Will you still love the same things you love today? (Most likely some but not all) Will you still care most about the same issues? Will you still have the same opinions? Will you still be as shy or as talkative, or as anxious or as confident, or as trusting or as cautious?

 

There’s no way of knowing.

 

And what’s difficult is you can’t even know for sure which friends you have today who’ll still be your friends then. Maybe things will happen in your life that put you on such opposing sides of an issue that they ruin a great friendship. Maybe someone who’s a casual acquaintance today will become far closer to you over time. Maybe someone you love like a sibling today will decide later that you’re not good enough and cut you out of their life. I’ve seen Handsome experience all of these. It’s often painful, and always surprising.

 

And this all adds up to me wishing for you to look at the friends you have today, especially the ones who’ve been your friends for some time, and let yourself feel some enormous gratitude for them. Don’t take them for granted! Real friendships, the ones that last, are miraculous. They’re just about the greatest treasure life can offer.

 

And then, if you want to make me really happy, get out there and do something about it! Text them a joke. Write them on Facebook and say, “You rock!” (Or “You stink!” – if that’s what your friendship’s like!)

 

Or, if that friend happens to be the very best kind of friend there is, you can always go up to them and give them a hug, scratch their ears, kiss them on the nose, and say “Good doggy!”

 

But whatever you do, just be sure you appreciate how amazing it is that they’re still in your life. And making it that much more magical.

———————–

 

Wow. Something bizarre has just happened. It’s sad but with such perfect timing, I can’t ignore it.

 

The piece you’ve just read is what I intended to write. But just now, right when I was about to post it, I found out that someone I never met, but who was important to me, passed away today. His name was Gerry Goffin, and he co-wrote a lot of great songs. Some of my favorites. Like “One Fine Day” and “Up on the Roof.” And the most famous song ever recorded by the group who I was named after. So I will close this piece, about how you never know what’s going to happen in relationships, with a quote from this wonderful song, by this man the world will mourn:

 

Tonight you’re mine, completely

You give your love so sweetly

Tonight the light of love is in your eyes

But will you love me tomorrow?

 

We will, Mr. Goffin. And every day after.

Shirelle