Category Archives for "Questions"

0 How to stay patient when it’s impossible

Tech deck12345 asks: My toy is coming in the mail soon but I am getting really impatient, and my sister has the same toy and will not let me do anything with them. Help!!!!

Hi Tech deck12345 –

OH do I get this!  We pups have no patience at all!  We can be trained to sit still, but that doesn’t mean our attention isn’t completely on whatever it is we’re impatient about!

WHY can’t Handsome open the door the second I see a dog outside?  WHY can’t someone feed me the second I smell their food?  WHY do I have to stay perfectly still when obviously the person I love is walking away?  And, every day, why can’t Handsome come back home NOW?!

Apparently adult humans learn a lot of patience.  I guess that’s one reason they do so many things so well – from bringing food home to driving cars, to raising kids.  But the reason kids need to be raised is because they’re like us dogs, and want what we want NOW!

Now Tech deck12345, there’s also a big difference between trying to be patient about something we’re just aware of (like that Handsome hasn’t come home yet) and trying when there’s something we want that’s right in front of us.  I knew a dog named Ygor, who, when his humans would come home, would get so excited and impatient that he’d lose control of his Continue reading

0 How to take it when someone calls you ugly

alliekat asks: Everybody tells me that I am very pretty. And I was on Instagram and I posted something and a guy said that I was very ugly. I didn’t know how to handle it. How should I handle it?

Hi alliekat –

Isn’t it just amazing?  If a person is told a thousand times that they’re smart, and one person just once says that they’re dumb, they’ll instantly forget the thousand comments and remember the one.  Similarly, you’ve always been told you’re pretty, but one guy said you’re not, and it’s thrown you all off.  Brains are weird, aren’t they?!

Well, alliekat, I have a couple of reactions to this.  The first is that the guy might have been saying his true feelings, but if so – so what!  My friend Handsome is a great lover of beautiful women, and absolutely adores the loveliness of all sorts of them.  But he has never, for the life of him, understood what people get so excited about with the famous woman Continue reading

0 How to encourage teenage girls to stay abstinent

prettyndsweet12 asks: Recently I had an encounter with a boy over text message saying he wanted to do certain things with me (not “going all the way,” but…). I knew the boy and I liked him, but he wasn’t willing to make me his girlfriend and that was NOT ok with me. I told him no but he threatened to put the text message online so everyone could see it. I have to admit I was scared at first, but then I thought about it, and I was proud for sticking up for myself and respecting my body. The experience taught me that my virginity is like a gift…kind of like a one million dollar necklace. And you wouldn’t just give that gift off to anyone would you? Of course not, you would save it and give it to someone you love and someone who deserves it. That’s why I’m practicing abstinence and I’m committing to no sex until marriage. I feel that if I was able to motivate myself to do that, then I can help motivate other teen girls to do the same. So I was thinking about starting a campaign against underage sex, and teen pregnancy – and also inform them about what to do if they have the same encounter that I had. Do you have any suggestions on where and how I can start my campaign, and any tips?

Hi prettyndsweet12 –

You’ve been with me long enough to know that I am a huge supporter of people, especially girls, owning their own boundaries.  I am so proud of you for standing up for yourself, especially in the face of that boy’s nasty, cowardly threat to you.  The important thing to me isn’t as much what you said no to, as the fact that you gave yourself the right to say no to what bothered you, whatever it was.  Congratulations.  I bow my head to you!

When it comes to your question about the campaign, though, I have a few questions.  What the boy wanted from you would have kept you (officially) a virgin, and wouldn’t have caused pregnancy.  So while your story is a good one for teaching girls to take pride in their rights, it’s not exactly about that issue.

Now if this experience has led you to want to campaign for total abstinence from all sexual activity (including feeling around, etc.), that’s another thing.  I’m just a little unclear about what you’re suggesting.

I will say one other thing about it, just based on the experience we’ve had in my country (the United States) over the past few decades.  Because of sexual rules in society getting more and more lax, there have been lots of attempts at Abstinence Education, teaching children and teens that abstinence is the only way to avoid unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.  The bad news is that the Continue reading

0 How to deal with mean authority figures

Tech deck12345 asks: I am in a summer camp, and my babysitter is really really mean. What should I do?

Hi Tech deck12345 –

Now I now that lots of people (and dogs) define “really mean” in different ways, but let me start with a simple statement here.  Babysitters, dogsitters, and all other kinds of caregivers have their jobs for one reason. To take care of the littler ones.  It’s great if they can teach them something, or have fun with them, or clean up after them, but that’s all secondary to what matters most – CARE.  And if a babysitter ignores the kids in the house they’re staying in and spends all her time on the phone with her boyfriend (or in person with her boyfriend!), or a dogsitter doesn’t feed the dogs, or kicks them, those people are JERKS!

Okay, got that out of my system.  Good!

Now about your camp:  Tech deck12345, I don’t know what mean things this person is doing to you, but regardless, if they’re an employee of the camp, that means they’re really working for Continue reading

1 How a writer can improve focus

arjai101 asks: I like writing. I write a lot of Fantasy and Sci Fi. People often tell me that I’m pretty good at it as well. They say I have good ideas. So, I decided to put together a compilation of my short stories and try to get them published as a book. I have quite a few written so far, but I still need a few more to write. I have the ideas for the stories and I’ve done the planning, but the problem is that I can’t focus. I’m a thirteen-year-old on summer vacation and I’ve basically turned ADD. It seems that every time I sit down to try and work on the project I just can’t focus and work on it. I also can’t manage my time and force my self to do the writing. When I try to sit down and write and force myself, the writing comes out really crappy. How can I stay focused and get myself to sit down and write again?

Hi arjai101 –

Oh boy do I relate to this!

arjai101, there’s one simple reason you have trouble making yourself disciplined enough to write regularly – it’s HARD!  And it’s hard for everyone.

First of all, it’s hard to make yourself focus for long periods of time.  Wait, was that a squirrel I just heard?!

Second, it’s hard to make time for yourself to work on something that no one else Continue reading

0 Should someone try to be funny at school, they way they do at home?

cutepuppy asks: At school I’m shy, but at home I’m not; I’m funny at home. In school I don’t want to be shy, I want to be really funny, but how? And if I act funny, they might not think its funny!

Hi cutepuppy –

“Funny” is such a difficult thing to define!  Some people find Shakespeare’s comedies hilarious.  Others find “Austin Powers” movies uproarious.  Some people memorize every word ever spoken on “Seinfeld,” while others find it dull, but laugh till tears roll at “Modern Family.”  Was Jerry Lewis funny?  People can get violent over that one!  What do you think of Roberto Benigni, Jim Carrey, Zach Galifanakis, Melissa McCarthy?  Is a person slipping on a banana peel funny?  What about a man in a dress?  What about a pie fight?

There’s no single right answer.  The truth is all of those people and things have been very very funny to a great many people.  Handsome tells me the funniest thing he ever saw was a dog he had before he knew me, holding a very wide bone, trying to run through a thin doggy-door.  Would I have found that funny?  I truly have no idea.  But he still laughs about it, many years later.

Now because of this, you’re absolutely correct that there’s no way you could know that the kids at school would find you funny, in the same way your family does at home.  But I’m guessing that the bigger problem is that you don’t feel the Continue reading

1 How to handle a strong desire to kill

Emee asks: I have a problem and I don’t know how to deal with it. This is REALLY personal. I have this inexplicable urge to kill living things. I’ve never killed a human, but I want to. I have had this problem for years. When I was 8 I sliced up my old Barbie Dolls. When I was 10 I would catch large bugs to dissect them. Now I’m 11 and I try to catch squirrels and birds. This is a problem that has become so bad I’ve researched it. I know that I have the potential for a future serial killer. That’s not who I want to be ever. I don’t feel other people’s pain and I hardly feel my own. This will be a problem someday. I need real help. Something not comparing to cats and dogs. If you can help that would be nice.

Hi Emee –

Emee, I know there are lots of websites that give advice, and I’m really glad you picked mine for this.  Because I – and all dogs – are exactly like you!  I get it.  I get your excitement, and I get your fear.  And I truly think I can help.

If you’ve ever watched puppies, you probably have noticed that we spend most of our waking hours playing.  And our playing pretty much means two things – play-fighting and play-killing.  With our friends, we tumble and scrap and bite.  And with toys (whether “official” toys like we are given by humans, or pretty much anything we find, like sticks or shoes) we rip them up, tear them, demolish them.  Just like you with the Barbie dolls.  It’s true that we puppies aren’t as aware of the meaning of these acts as you were (hey – that 8-year-old human brain of yours was probably bigger than all of me was at that stage!), but we were doing the same thing.

Emee, it’s instinctual.  We all have base instincts in us that come from our distant ancestors (for us pups that means wolves!), and a major part of all our development involves instinctively building these skills.  So a six-month-old puppy has already learned to fight and to hunt, as well as to love.  Probably the three most important skills a dog needs to live.  Similarly, while you humans develop more slowly and with far more insight and intelligence, your instincts taught you to be interested in fighting and killing at an early age too.

Now, I am about as sweet and kind a being as has ever existed… if you are a human or a dog, and I believe you’re going to be kind to me.  But I’m a terrific fighter if I’m feeling threatened.  And I am a VERY good hunter, of other kinds of animals.  Emee I have killed squirrels, rats, birds, and more.  None of these animals threatened me (I’ve killed an uncountable number of fleas too, but they definitely deserved it!).  I hunt because every bit of my instinct tells me to do so.  The only reason I wouldn’t hunt a small animal is if Handsome, my human friend, tells me not to.  And he has to really yell sometimes to make sure I hear him!  Those instincts are LOUD!

So why am I saying all this about myself, Emee?  It’s because, if you met me, you wouldn’t be in the least afraid that I’d hunt you or kill you.  Nor does any dog.  I don’t think that way, because dogs and people are what I see as beings I play with, or fight with, or run away from, or cuddle up to.  Not as something I want to kill.

Now if you’d written me and said that you had all these desires to kill small animals, and you were now feeling like killing cats or dogs, and thought that in the future you might want to kill people, and you wondered why anyone had a problem with that… THEN I’d worry!  It would tell me that you were actually something called a Continue reading

0 Is it a good idea for a teenager to move in with a relative in order to stay in the same school?

irina1997 asks: I’m 17, in high school. My parents want to move away from the city. Partly because they want peace and quiet but also because it’s cheaper there. The house they found is really far away from my school and I would take very long bus rides every day. I have another choice. I could move in with a cousin. She’s about 30 and lives alone in a big apartment, which is very close to my school. I don’t want to move away from the city but I’m kind of sad/scared to live without my parent and with a person I don’t really know. What should I do?

Hi irina1997 –

This is a really tough question.  If you were much younger, I’d say that it’s probably worth more to stay with your parents, as you’ll just get used to your new school and it’ll be fine.  If you were an adult, I’d say you should definitely move out, just for the adventure.  But you’re right on the tightrope between the two.

So I think either one could be fine.  The difference between the two is in the risk you take.  Moving with your parents sets up a risk that you might not like your new school, or make many friends, before you’re done there.  Moving in with your cousin sets up a risk that you might not get along that well with her.

But the difference between these two risks is that one of them offers you a chance to Continue reading

0 What to do when a friend starts bullying you

fQ7jlvzgzVoc asks: I’m worried about one of my classmates, I’m not gonna say her real name so I’ll just write Amy. Amy and I were really good friends back in primary school. But one way or another, we drifted apart when we entered middle school. I started to hang out with the Artsy types and she hung out with the math whiz team (since she’s really good in math). Of course, we still hung out sometimes but not as much as we use too. So here’s the problem, when we started high school, Amy began to hang out with the bad kids. And I mean ‘bad’ bad. They bully other kids, they always say curse words and they always cut class. I was really worried that they will change sweet, innocent Amy and I was right! Amy started to act like a gangster when summer ended last year. I tried talking to her, but she just swore and told me to leave her alone. Now, I’m a victim of being bullied by her too. Please give me some advice so I can get the kind and gentle old Amy back before it’s too late.

Hi fQ7jlvzgzVoc –

Before I start to answer your question, I have one for you – do you know what the name Amy actually means? Funny you picked it – it means Friend!

I think you’re living one of the biggest fears any of us ever has, that the person we love and trust most turns against us. This starts when we’re very young, when we do something unwittingly bothersome to an adult we love and trust, who suddenly turns furious on us. “Look Mommy, I drew a picture for you on the living room wall!” “Hi Daddy, isn’t it funny that I pooped in your car?!” Or, on my side, “Hey, I know what you want right now – you want me to wake you up by biting you in the leg as hard as I can!”   And suddenly, the person we’re expecting to be happy with us is suddenly yelling and raging and scaring the daylights out of us.

What you’re experiencing is less sudden, but maybe even more painful. This was your great friend, and now she’s acting like an enemy.

I really have two thoughts on this. One is that she’s Continue reading

0 How to deal with a parent who can’t compliment you

lover454 asks: How would you interpret what my mom (age 88) said to me (age 59), given the fact she always has to be snide with me. Keep in mind this is the same mother who twice (a year ago and a few years ago) said to me that I was overdressed for an interview. Today I drove her to do some chores and I said to her “Are you really putting down my clothes” and in a sarcastic way she said, “Yes I am”. Anyway I dropped it, and when we finished part of the chores she had one more chore to do, so as I was driving her to that chore I decided to ask her again about my clothes, and she replied, “I would never even tell you if I liked something you were wearing, because if I didn’t say I liked what you were wearing the next day you would get upset.” So I teased her about that answer At the next chore, after she finished, she said to me in the car after I pestered her a little more, “There are some days one looks better than others,” which got me upset and I asked her to clarify, and she said, “The hair can look better some days than others, one has no make up on.” We said a few other things which made her say, “I would never tell you when you look great” (THIS WAS THE LINE THAT GOT ME REALLY ANGRY BECAUSE TO ME THIS IS IMPLYING I DON’T LOOK GOOD UNLESS SHE THINKS SO. We had some fight at home and we are still not speaking. She got really nasty about how I look, telling me all kinds of nasty things. How would you interpret her “look great” remark?

Hi lover454 –

I’m going to make a guess. Now you can be sure, we dogs don’t make correct guesses often, so I know there’s a good chance I’m wrong, but I’m going to risk it anyway:

I’m going to guess that your mother has never been very complimentary toward you. I’m going to guess that when you were young, she criticized how you dressed for school, or how you did on your grades, or how you did in sports – and later, how you looked when you went on a date (and who the person was you were going out with), and who you chose for your friends, and what sort of work you did… I’ll bet she’s always been really tough on you.

The reason I’m guessing that is that most people reach a point in life where they don’t care what certain people think. But one thing that will keep that person’s opinion mattering to you (especially if it’s a parent) is if you’re still Continue reading