So, as I mentioned in a recent post, I have been housesitting/dogsitting for a super amazing puppy named Atticus for the last couple weeks, who I have now fallen madly, stupidly, in love with. It's ridiculous. I leave tomorrow and though I am convinced Atticus won't even register my presence and subsequent absence on his little puppy radar, I feel like I'm definitely going to shed a few earnest dog-sitter tears at our parting.
When I was growing up, for a brief period we had a basset hound by the name of Toby, who was, without question, one of the stupidest dogs on the planet. He would dig holes in the yard just to bark down them. He would forget who we were when we came home from the grocery store. He would spend hours trying to climb on to an ottoman that he had long since outgrown--just shimmying up and falling off and shimmying up and falling off. His paws were nearly as big as his ears (which were enormous), and which gave him an additionally dopey demeanor, and my mom all but ruined him by feeding him m&ms underneath the table whenever he padded up to her. And though I liked Toby, quite a lot, he was really my mom's dog, and left us before I was even a teenager so I never had that THING. You know the thing I'm talking about? The way that people feel like their dogs are family...the way that people love their pets...like love-love? I never understood that...
Until now.
I. Am. In. Love. With. This. Dog.
He's one of those follow-you-through-the-house gazing up at you with his one good eye (he's blind in one eye...did I mention that?) kind of dogs, and he makes me all melty inside.
But THAT is not the point. The point is, that due to my new doggy-awareness, I suddenly became interested in watching (and I realize I'm like 11 seasons late to the game here) The Dog Whisperer with Cesar Milan.
And while I could go into all the half-assed dog training I've been embarrassingly trying to implement with a dog who is NOT MY DOG...I'd instead like to focus on just one thing.
Mr. Milan (that's what I'm calling him now), as he's voodoo-ing all these people and their crazy dogs, keeps reiterating a few of the same basic points:
1. That people often inadvertently encourage bad behavior in their dogs, because they give more attention to the dog's anxiety than to anything else. They yell and pull and shush and comfort when the dog is going bonkers, and that, to the little doggie-mind means, "keep on a-doin what you're doin."
2. That a submissive dog is a happy dog, and;
3. That a dog, in order to submit, needs to be guided by a calm assertive presence.
And I have to say, the whole time I was watching the show (the several episodes I watched) I couldn't stop thinking...this is how I should be dealing with my miiiiiiiiiiiind!!
Meditation teachers often talk about the mind as being like a puppy...just chasing after anything and everything that peaks it's interest, and that we have to deal with the training of the mind with the same patience we would use in the training of a puppy.
And all week long in my classes I have been exploring this idea of figuring out how to be the calm assertive presence for our own puppy selves. How can we master our more frenetic impulses, not by adding to the drama, but just by firmly, patiently, tugging on the leash, and getting that dog back on track?
I love this so much, because not only does it engender compassion for our crazier impulses, it also fosters this idea of a part of ourselves which is...master. It reminds us (and by us, I mean me) that we DO have control, even when it feels like we don't. Even when our mind is, like, chewing everything in sight and pooping in the living room and barking at nothing...even then, we have a choice. We can take up the leash, breathe into our own steadiness, and reign ourselves in.
