Category Archives for "Growing Up"

0 How to live a successful life

beena asks: Tell me how to spend a successful life.

Hi beena –

I have an answer for you, which might sound cheap at first (or even catty, just about the lowest word I can imagine!).  It’s this: Define what “success” is for you.

The only time one can truly decide whether their life has been successful or not is at the end of it.  So imagine yourself many years from now, old, very happy, feeling your life has been a total success.  Now let your imagination run wild, like me in a field of bunnies!  What has made your life so successful?!

Do you picture Continue reading

0 Which parent should a child choose in a divorce?

Hachiko asks: I think my parents are getting a divorce. Should I be happy or sad (I’m happy)? My dad’s not a good man. My mom’s currently looking for a job, but she won’t get paid much. But my question is: who should I stay with? Clearly, my mom won’t be able to pay my educational expenses, and my dad’s acting very rude with her.

Hi Hachiko –

I have a number of questions on here about divorce, and most of them deal with the fact that the children of the couple feel very bad about it.  The fact that you actually say you’re happy tells me a great deal about your situation.  In particular, it tells me that this divorce is a positive and necessary one, and that it will likely make your, and your mother’s, life better.  I can’t say that, as a loyal pooch, I’m ever glad to hear about people divorcing, but in cases like this, the sad part is what was in the marriage before the couple split, not the split itself.

Divorce is almost purely a legal issue.  So a lot of the things you’re asking about are beyond my knowledge, and will be determined by a court of law.  For example: Will your father have to continue to financially support your mother?  Will your father have to pay child support for you?  Will you have a choice of whom to live with, or will the court determine that for you?!

So your questions might be things you don’t need to worry about at all.  Except, I think, one:  You ask Continue reading

0 What can help arthritis?

majuliann asks: Can eating apples heal Arthritis? If not, which fruits can?

Hi majuliann –

Humans and dogs disagree about lots of things.  Dogs like licking strangers’ faces; humans usually don’t.  Dogs like sniffing where someone’s peed; humans don’t. Humans adore cats; we don’t.

But one thing we definitely agree on is that we both HATE arthritis!  This awful, painful, chronic, debilitating disease has absolutely nothing to like about it!

Actually, the term “arthritis” applies to over a hundred Continue reading

0 What is Self-Trust

Anes asks: What is self-trust?

Hi Anes –

Self-trust is something that everyone in the world wants to have, but some people don’t.  It literally means trusting yourself to do things that you believe in, and will be best for you.

It’s hard to describe self-trust, because it’s so simple.  So let’s talk about its opposite instead.  Have you ever seen any of those cool old Wolf Man movies from the 1940s?  They’re not like the Taylor Lautner character in the “Twilight” films; these are about a man who is totally normal, nice, all that, but who’s bitten by a werewolf and so becomes, on nights of the full moon, a bloodthirsty murderous monster.  Then the next morning he’ll wake up, having no memory of what he’s done, but with evidence (like mud or blood) that it’s happened again: he’s killed innocent people.

Now that man has a severe case of lack of Continue reading

0 What to do when a friend resents your helping them

adriannaar asks: I helped a friend with an important problem, and all our friends that were involved became mean to me. What should I do? They are all giving me the cold shoulder.

(Note: This is actually a conversation, because I wasn’t clear enough at first about what the problem was)

Hi adriannaar –

Wow, it sounds like something is really off here.  Normally, when friends get together to help someone, it improves their relationship.  They’ve felt a kinship in their cause, and no matter what happens afterward, they’ll always have some love for each other from that bond.  We see this most clearly in battle, where soldiers who wouldn’t otherwise like each other at all develop a deep connection and devotion for each other that lasts through their lifetime, through their shared devotion.

So, yeah, something is off.  I can only imagine two possible scenarios here.  The first is that these people had something against you before any of you started to help that friend, but they didn’t show it until after your ‘project’ with that friend ended.  But that seems really unlikely.  Especially since they weren’t treating you badly till afterwards.

The more likely answer is that there’s something you did, or that they Continue reading

0 How to stop hair from falling out

shaun army asks: How can I stop my hair from falling out?

Hi shaun army –

Oh boy, would Handsome love it if I could stop my hair from shedding!  I shed hair all year, all day, everywhere!  He can brush me every week, but still he finds my hairs in his food, in his toothbrush, and, of course, always on his nicest clothes.  He loves me so much he tolerates it, and says he considers my hairs on his black suit a “badge of honor,” and a reminder of how much he loves me… but if he could find a way to stop me from losing all that hair, he’d do it instantly!

However, in my case we’re talking about fur, which just keeps growing in, no matter how much comes out.  I lose hairs all the time, but I’m not going bald!  Humans aren’t necessarily so lucky!

While humans shed hair all their lives, just as we dogs do, there are certain times when some humans lose more hair than they re-grow, which makes their heads start to show more skin than before.  Of course this happens most to Continue reading

0 What does “gay” mean?

zaroon asks: What are gays?

Hi zaroon –

“Gay” is a fairly new term for people (the term usually means men, but sometimes means both men and women) who are sexually attracted to people of their own sex.  The more long-standing term is “homosexual,” which means the same thing.

The word “gay” used to mean something very different, a carefree sort of happy.  The decade of the 1890s was referred to as “The Gay Nineties,” due to its partying atmosphere and bright music, for example.  As the word’s usage as a term for homosexuality has risen, we’ve pretty much lost the old meaning, which is too bad, since there’s no other word that means the exact same thing as it did.

As humans tend to do, many will tell you other answers to your Continue reading

4 Do breast-enhancement pills work?

isha asks: Do you believe that breast-enhancement pills work to increase the size of your bust?

Hi isha –

Let me remind you of one very important fact here:  I am a Dog.  We dogs do not ever develop the supple breasts that human women do.  In fact, we really wouldn’t want to!  First, they’d get in our way as we crawl around on our chests.  But more importantly, we don’t have one or two babies at a time like you people do.  We have litters of eight or more puppies at once!  Can you imagine what a dog would look like if we had eight full breasts so we could feed all our young?!

What we have instead are small nipples, or teats, just big enough for our puppies to drink from.  Only nursing mothers or older females who’ve had lots of puppies even have teats that you’d notice from a few feet away.  They don’t affect our appearance, or our attractiveness to males, in any way.

Obviously, this is very different from humans.  Human females are expected to undergo some very major changes in their bodies’ shapes when they reach maturity (in their teen years).  And their new body shapes have a profound effect on their attractiveness – both in their own eyes and in those of Continue reading

1 How should a teen deal with pornography?

kavin24 asks: I’m a 13-year-old girl. Recently I watched some sexual videos. I don’t want to watch them, but now I can’t stop. I can’t tell my mom about this. I want to be a good child, so please tell me what can I do.

Hi kavin24 –

You’re really dealing with two giant issues here, both of which are about timing.  On one hand, thirteen is a very normal age for a girl to start thinking and feeling more about sex.  There’s nothing wrong with your curiosity and interest.

On the other hand, you’re also living in a time unlike any before, where very explicit sexual material is easily available to anyone at anytime, in incredible amounts, through the Internet.  Let me clarify this further – you have more access to pornographic material than anyone in the world did twenty years ago or more.

What’s really unfair about this is that Continue reading

0 How to improve communication

Prettyndsweet12 asks: A few months ago my friend moved, but I still text her and we chat online, but she hasn’t been answering me lately. I have a bad habit of constantly texting her when she doesn’t respond, because I don’t want to lose her, and I get scared because I don’t know if she is ignoring me because she is mad or if something happened. Please help me to get rid of my bad habit and help me to relax when she doesn’t respond. Also I have been having communication problems with my mom; she always yells at me instead of reasoning. What should I do?

Hi prettyndsweet12 –

You’re absolutely right to connect these two questions, prettyndsweet12.  Because both are about styles of communication.

You see, there’s nothing wrong with you texting your friend.  The only thing that’s wrong is that you slip into an anxious habit of texting too many times.  Similarly, I’m sure your mom has good reasons to get upset with you (don’t all parents?!), but she’d have better luck with your behavior if she’d do something other than yell.

The trick, in both cases, is to change how the person deals with their initial urge.

This sounds complex, but it’s really pretty simple.  When I was a puppy, every instinct in me told me to bite.  To bite everyone, and everything, all the time.  And the more excited I got, the more I liked to bite.  So if I met you, you’d probably say “oh what a cute puppy!” and reach down to pet me, but I’d be chomping on your fingers before you ever got to my soft fur.  And when you pulled your hand back, I’d lunge at your ankles with my teeth out like knives.  I was cute enough to get away with it most of the time, but I was really pretty annoying.

The trick Handsome learned was to have lots of stuffed toys around.  So whenever I’d jump in to bite anyone, he’d stop me with a loud “No!” and then grab a toy and stuff it into my mouth.  Once I bit down on it, he’d change his whole tone, pet me, and tell me what a good, smart, wonderful puppy I was.  Eventually (note the word “eventually!”) I learned to, when I wanted to bite someone, run and grab a toy instead.  I’ve done that ever since!  Seriously, if you came to our house now, I’d run up to you, sniff you, give you a little lick on your hand, and then run grab a toy and chomp down on it like it was a candybar, and shake it like crazy!

You see, what Handsome did was to teach me to, when I felt the urge to bite someone in fun, do something smarter instead!  And that’s what you and your mom both need to learn to do.

So can you, when you get frustrated with your friend not responding to your text, put that energy into something else?  Maybe you could jump up and down, or hit a pillow a bunch of times, or perhaps write notes to yourself about your frustration?  Anything is fine, as long as it doesn’t have a bad effect on yourself or others.

Now when it comes to your mom, that’s a bit tougher, because what we’re asking about is your ability to change her behavior!  And of course, no one can ever change someone else’s behavior!  Even when Handsome was stuffing toy animals into my mouth, he wasn’t really changing my behavior; he was just giving me reasons to want to change my own actions, and trying to clarify the best way for me to do that.

But you’re not your mom’s owner, and you’re not about twenty times her size!  So you can’t do quite the things Handsome did!

What you can do, however, is this:  you can invite your mom out to dinner.  You can say to her, “Mom, there are some things I really want to talk about with you, and I want to do it in a special place where we can talk for a while.”  And if she won’t go out to dinner with you, you can plan out a time to talk at home, or to take a walk together.  The important thing is that she sees you taking charge and acting very adult.

(If you do this, there’s a good chance she’ll think you’re talking about something that scares her silly; so when she finds out you’re only trying to change her yelling, she’ll be thrilled!)

Okay, then when you get her alone, talk with her about the yelling, in as understanding and adult a way as you possibly can.  Explain that you understand that she’s your parent, that she needs to teach you things, and that sometimes you misbehave in ways that can be really irritating.  And then say that her yelling is actually getting in the way of what you and she both really want most, which is for her to help you learn and grow.  And that (here we go…) what would serve you best would be for her, when she feels like yelling at you, to do something else, something that would get your attention but not be so scary, or so loud.  Simply put, if she could just trust that, if she simply explains what’s wrong, and talks it out with you, the result will be better.

Now here’s the big deal with this, prettyndsweet12:  You then have to prove yourself right!  If she agrees to this idea, and then you do something that bothers her (say, you don’t turn the TV off when she’d asked you to), and she tries to calmly explain to you why that bothers her, and you don’t change your behavior… you’ve just blown it.  She’ll start yelling again.

In other words, for this to work, YOU have to change more than she does.  But if it does work, it will do wonders for your life.  You won’t only have less yelling in your house; you’ll have a whole new relationship with your mom, one based in mutual respect and appreciation.  It’ll be simply amazing.

Just like how, once I learned to chase those stuffed toys, Handsome was able to relax and enjoy introducing me to all his friends.  And our lives got just amazingly better.

Good Luck with all this.  If you can manage these changes, prettyndsweet12, it’ll change your life forever!

Cheers,
Shirelle