Raising puppies or children helps to properly (re)train grownups

One of my all time favorite authors, Gene Hill, has a great quotation that goes “Whoever said you can't buy Happiness forgot little puppies.” I was reminded of that this morning when a young golden retriever pup came boundcing (that’s a cross between a bound and a bounce) over to say Hi! and welcome me to the John Deere shop where I had gone to get an oil filter for our subcompact tractor. My mood improved about 500% after returning the greeting. The innocence and exuberance of most pups is a marked improvement over the mood of many adult humans these days. It’s only been within the past few months that I’ve come across the phrase “doom scrolling” and, he admitted ashamedly, caught myself doing it.

"the Better Half’s" Franco as a young dog

Photo by J. Harrington

Our granddaughter, soon to turn one, does as well as a retriever pup in the joyousness department, both experiencing it and creating it for her parents, grandparents, uncle and about anyone lucky enough to be around her. (What? No, of course I’m not biased! The very idea!) Is it that puppies and toddlers still see most of the world and its inhabitants as interesting and friendly? Most of the dogs I’ve been lucky enough to have own me have kept that happy perspective for the whole times we shared, with occasional exceptions for things like thunderstorms.

“my" SiSi as a young dog

Photo by J. Harrington

Could it be that youngsters, whether canine or human, have more open, positive expectations because  they haven’t yet experienced the disappointments many of us go through as we grow to adulthood? Then there’s the whole positive reinforcement versus punishment corrections in training puppies and raising children. It’s been years but I still remember hearing about “spare the rod and spoil the child.” And  yet, every puppy or young dog I’ve brought home turned out to be eager to please and meet expectations if only I could be smart enough to convey those expectations in a way the dog could understand.

If Feeling Isn't In It

By John Brehm

You can take it away, as far as I'm concerned—I'd rather spend the afternoon with a nice dog. I'm not kidding. Dogs have what a lot of poems lack: excitements and responses, a sense of play the ability to impart warmth, elation . . . .  
                                                                                   Howard Moss

Dogs will also lick your face if you let them.

Their bodies will shiver with happiness.

A simple walk in the park is just about

the height of contentment for them, followed

by a bowl of food, a bowl of water,

a place to curl up and sleep. Someone

to scratch them where they can't reach

and smooth their foreheads and talk to them.

Dogs also have a natural dislike of mailmen

and other bringers of bad news and will

bite them on your behalf. Dogs can smell

fear and also love with perfect accuracy.

There is no use pretending with them.

Nor do they pretend. If a dog is happy

or sad or nervous or bored or ashamed

or sunk in contemplation, everybody knows it.

They make no secret of themselves.

You can even tell what they're dreaming about

by the way their legs jerk and try to run

on the slippery ground of sleep.

Nor are they given to pretentious self-importance.

They don't try to impress you with how serious

or sensitive they are. They just feel everything

full blast. Everything is off the charts

with them. More than once I've seen a dog

waiting for its owner outside a café

practically implode with worry. “Oh, God,

what if she doesn't come back this time?

What will I do? Who will take care of me?

I loved her so much and now she's gone

and I'm tied to a post surrounded by people

who don't look or smell or sound like her at all.”

And when she does come, what a flurry

of commotion, what a chorus of yelping

and cooing and leaps straight up into the air!

It's almost unbearable, this sudden

fullness after such total loss, to see

the world made whole again by a hand

on the shoulder and a voice like no other.

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