Читать книгу Leashes and Lovers - What Your Dog Can Teach You About Love, Life, and Happiness - Sheryl Matthys - Страница 7

It begins with listening. As a certified dog trainer with a B.A. in psychology and master’s in communications, I spent many hours studying how to actively listen. In fact, I may go so far as to say that everything I know, believe in, and trust is a result of listening, and everything you’ll learn in this book hinges on your ability to communicate through listening.

Listening is an art. Partly, this is a reactionary statement, for I’m not sure listening was an art – or even needed to be – in the days before television, radio, Walkman, CDs, DVDs, iPods, Blackberries, Bluetooth, and smart phones. Today, merely getting someone’s attention can be a Herculean task. Listening? Forget it. You might as well be speaking a foreign language.

But not so with your dog. Your dog has perfected the innate, wondrous, and energetic art of listening. The best part is that it comes so easily to dogs. They are sensual beings; they delight in the senses. They love textures – the feel of a new shoe, throw pillow, eco-friendly pull toy, or rawhide chew. They desire within to smell, touch, taste, see, and hear. Tastes are their color palette. Watch a dog sniff out, lick, and then devour greedily something it enjoys, yet then completely ignore and act aloof to that errant pineapple chunk that just hit the floor. And, sure, we all know dogs are expert smellers, but what you might not know is that they are exceptional listeners as well.

Not just for sounds – like the subtle tear of a bag of treats, the mere jiggle of their leash, or the UPS man at the front door – but they also “listen” for emotions, tears, fears, and jeers. Much as a dog will perk up at the scent of frying bacon, so too will she round the corner unexpectedly if she senses that you’re crying, laughing, yelling, down in the dumps, suddenly silent, or sniffling into your pillow. Dogs teach us that listening includes an open, receptive, unguarded mind and heart in order to hear what’s being said as well as what’s not spoken.

Leslie Irvine, a sociologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and author of If You Tame Me: Human Identity and the Value of Animals’ Lives, explains, “If an animal is living with a person for a number of months or years, that animal will know when that person is experiencing tension or when the person is relaxed, or when the person is angry – much in the same way that we know when our human friends would be feeling those emotions.”

To think that dogs can comprehend so many of the complexities of human emotions without “speaking our language” – to say nothing of not being able to read a dog-training manual – makes them even more expert in the art of listening. But they can’t do it alone. To effectively foster communication you must be an active and willing participant.

To that end, I want you to strive for these four goals after reading this book:

1. Appreciate the art of listening: Accept that listening is the key to understanding, and humble yourself enough to recognize that as a modern human being you may have lost some of your skill set in this demanding arena. It’s not your fault; we are taught that he who speaks loudest or most or last wins. But when communicating with your dog in order to learn to become a better communicator, it’s got to be: speak softly – or not at all. We have labored too long in the belief that the more we say, the more we think we know. But when it comes to dogs, it’s not so much what you say as what you hear.

2. Hand over your leash: It’s about control, and it’s time to hand over your leash. Relinquish your role as the omnipotent, all-knowing, all-seeing guide, and start following more than you lead. Stop trying to be “in control” of everything and everyone in your life, and realize that the tighter you clutch, the less control you actually have, and the more likely things will spiral “out of control.” This can be hard for most of us; we’re taught that being in control is our natural state and part of being a responsible adult. But heed this lesson from your dog: It’s great to be part of a holistic pack! Especially when you have learned to speak the language.

3. Recognize the building blocks of communication: Humility, intimacy, playfulness, trust, loyalty, and companionship. These are what I consider to be the six building blocks of communication. In the next chapter, we’ll explore each value and learn what your dog can teach you about each one. Why is communication so important? Simple: communication affects every relationship you have. It’s the glue that binds people together or the knife that severs the connection; so the more effective you are at communicating with others, the more successful your relationships will be.

4. “Settle” yourself and embrace the sounds of silence: In this book I have provided some simple exercises to help you enter your dog’s world and understand, enjoy, and embrace the sounds of silence, like learning to meditate to awaken you to your inner being. Now, this doesn’t mean your dog will become “the quiet type” overnight; far from it. Dogs, like people, are either hardwired for sound or born to be mellow (good luck with changing their nature!). No, the kind of silence I’m talking about is that which you experience when fully communicating with your dog on a deeper, more meaningful level. Stop barking orders and get face-to-face with how your dog really communicates: one emotion, one situation at a time. As in meditation and prayer, listen past your own voice and the clutter in your mind to hear the answers to your dilemmas.