Читать книгу My Dog, My Buddha - Kimberly Artley - Страница 15

6.

The importance of moving forward.

Dogs live in the moment. They’re fully present in every scenario. Humans, on the other hand, typically live in the past or in the future. It’s a conscious effort for us to be fully present and in the moment.

Moving forward is a practice and a choice we make.

Here’s a common scenario: a woman and her dog are out for a walk. In the past, this dog has lunged, barked, and put on quite a show every time another dog is encountered. Now, as soon as she sees a dog approaching, she tightens up, gets a kung-fu grip on the leash, her heart rate quickens, and she braces for the inevitable. She starts looking for exit strategies and alternative routes. Cars to duck behind. No luck. So she moves off to the side and puts Fido in a “Sit”. The other dog gets closer, and Fido loses it. Just as she expected.

I get it, I’ve been there before. It’s not a fun place, for the person or the dog. But let’s try it another way.

Mulligan: A woman has a dog-reactive dog and they’re out for a walk. In the past, this dog has lunged, barked, and put on quite a show every time another dog is encountered. She quickly detaches from the past, and stays fully present. A new outcome could happen, if she simply releases the story and shifts her focus. She knows this now. She begins to envision walking by the other dog with no issues, no displays. She’s breathing deeply, she’s calm, and feeling oh-so confident. The leash is short, but not tight or tense. Her arm is long and relaxed, head is held high, shoulders are down and back. Fido is saying to himself, “Oh, okay. My human’s got it. Well, this is new. I like it. I think I’ll go with it.” She’s going in, and cool as a cucumber.

Fido may begin to revert back to his usual patterned way of behaving; but each time this gets consistently practiced, his reactions become less and less intense as a new story is being written. He’s not in a “Sit”, a stationary position where his only option is to hyper-focus and fixate on the oncoming dog (trigger). Both human and dog are moving forward and through the obstacle together. Both becoming more confident and more trusting in one other. Fido feels his human asserting herself and guiding him through this usually hairy situation in a far different manner; and the human starts to see

Fido in a new light as he’s making different choices and practicing a different behavior as a result of this guidance.

Moving forward is always better than staying still. Detachment is liberating, whereas attachment can be quite stifling when it comes to behavior.

To move forward is to release the story.

Humans tend to cling to a “story” when it involves dogs, fueling and feeding them with emotion. This is particularly common with shelter and rescue dogs, and dogs whom have come from a bad situation.

Whatever the story may be, dogs can and always want to move forward. They’re incredibly resilient. More often than not, it’s us preventing them from doing so. We attach ourselves to the story, keeping it alive with our thoughts, emotions and words.

We don’t introduce our dog simply as “Joey”, but as, “Joey the dog we rescued from a puppy mill who’d spent his entire life in a cage”. We spend our time trying to compensate for every wrong ever done to the dog, giving him love, love, love, and more love. Giving affection to every state of mind: fearfulness, anxiety, and nervousness; thus conditioning and creating more insecurity, instability and unhealthy dependencies.

It’s in Dog’s nature to live and be in the moment, as it is ours; but it takes conscious effort and mindfulness to reach this space. To be fully present. To release assumption and illusion. To acknowledge prior chapters of a story, but detach from them as we begin to author new ones.

We can’t and won’t help anyone move beyond tragedy or trauma when we remain attached to the story.

Moving forward. It’s a process, a daily practice, a conscious effort, and a choice we make. Release. Re-associate. Re-acquaint. One foot, one paw in front of the other. Honor the past by having the courage to overcome, move forward, and evolve. Each moment is an opportunity to re-write the story and begin again.