Leashes and Lovers - What Your Dog Can Teach You About Love, Life, and Happiness. Sheryl Matthys
through your dog’s eyes to help you develop better relationships with human beings – the people we love, cherish, and want to understand better in our lives. Your dog knows how to prompt you to show up wholeheartedly, rub her belly, and expose your vulnerabilities in the way she does, for a more enriching relationship.
What human relationship couldn’t be enhanced by a dash of better listening?
How do we achieve a more dog-like honesty? It’s a matter of simplifying life and finding the truth within us.
CHAPTER 2
The Building Blocks of Communication – “Hip TLC”
Humility, Intimacy, Playfulness,
Trust, Loyalty, and Companionship
(Think “Hip TLC” to help you remember these!)
Six Qualities You Can Share With Your Dog
I want you to memorize these words: humility, intimacy, playfulness, trust, loyalty, and companionship. We’ll be discussing the vital traits of “Hip TLC” throughout this book, and by the time our journey is complete you will see how these six simple qualities hold the key to understanding all you need to know – not just about how dogs and humans communicate, but how humans communicate with each other as well.
• Humility •
In my time as The Dog Expert, I have never known a dog to gloat, brag, or boast. Dogs may be the most humble creatures on earth, while humans may be the vainest.
Too often, this human vanity gets in the way of our human relationships. Think to yourself how easy it is for you to blow off a friend because you have “more important things to do.” Really?
What’s more important than friendship?
To a dog, nothing is more important than friendship, and yet we humans treat our friends – even our family, and especially our spouses – as if they’ll always be there at the ready, like man-servants or handmaidens.
If we were to practice as much humility as dogs are inherently graced with, I can guarantee you that every human relationship we have would be immediately improved a hundred-fold. Humility ripples positively through every relationship we have. It makes us better listeners, more available friends, more compassionate spouses, and more attentive children.
It may mean only a few minutes out of your day to initiate more humility; a few minutes a day reflecting, sitting with your dog, observing his breathing, gently patting him, clearing your mind, and just taking in the moment.
Call it a type of prayer, if you will, with an informal structure. Commit to five minutes of this daily ritual with your dog – thinking only positive thoughts, if any – for yourself, your dog, and all others. You’ll notice how good, sincere thoughts give you energy rather than depleting it, and lead you to solving an issue rather than just fretting about it. These thoughts will attract what you put forth, and what you want out of life.
To a dog, nothing is more important than friendship, and yet we humans treat our friends – even our family, and especially our spouses – as if they’ll always be there at the ready, like man-servants or handmaidens.
• Intimacy •
There are things we can say to our dog that we can say to no one else; ways we can feel about our dogs that we don’t about human beings; things we can do with our dogs that non-dog lovers wouldn’t understand. It is a uniquely intimate relationship we have with our dogs.
The intimacy I’m talking about here is that closeness, that bond between two living creatures that drops all artifice, hubris, and ego. It is a complete willingness to open oneself up at all costs, whether mere embarrassment or emotional vulnerability.
Trusting your dog this way allows you the courage to expose your true self, bringing you the kind of happiness about who you are – for yourself and for others – that you may not have felt since childhood.
Often it takes another dog lover to understand this intimate connection. Sandy Moyer, Dogs Editor for BellaOnline.com, writes, “Pets satisfy our human need for close physical contact and touching. Many hospitals and nursing homes use dogs as stress reduction therapy.
Research shows that just a few moments of stroking a dog significantly reduces stress levels, and actually lowers blood pressure. Think of your dog as your personal therapist, on call 24/7!”
• Playfulness •
When was the last time you... just... played? Played without worry or regret; played without twice checking your email or texting on your Crackberry? Dogs play all the time in their own way, depending on breed, age, and health. Dogs play as often as possible.
Which is not to say that our sole purpose for existence should be to run around sniffing each other’s behinds. But can we not learn a little something from the art of being playful?
I know what you’re thinking: How is playfulness supposed to foster communication? Quite simply, playfulness is the cornerstone of relaxation. And just as a bit of exercise every day is necessary for a dog to be healthy and happy, so, too, is some time for play. After play, we feel both winded and refreshed, joyfully exhausted yet exuberantly alive. All such feelings lead us to relaxation and feeling open and charitable to new ideas and new people.
Here’s a quick experiment to prove my case: Let’s say you are going on vacation for nine days. If you’re like me, you will spend a full week or two before your departure date running around like a chicken with its head cut off. There are deadlines to meet, which of course you have to meet earlier now because you’re going to be gone. There are bills to pay, cash to withdraw, plants to water, clothes to pack, and did I mention those deadlines to meet?
Now let’s say, on the day of your big trip, three people call to chat: your mother, your friend, and a co-worker. But you have no time, and so you cut them short, snap at them or, more likely, let their calls go straight to voicemail.
Fast forward nine days and you arrive back home, refreshed and relaxed after you have had some playtime on your vacation. Sure, you’ve got email to read, piles of work on your desk, but that can all wait until tomorrow. For now, you’re still basking in the glow of a fresh tan and content with the heady scent of cocoa butter that still infuses all your dirty laundry – which you’ll also get to tomorrow.
Now, let’s say the same three people call you: mother, friend, and co-worker. Rested, relaxed and content, you’re much