Читать книгу Leashes and Lovers - What Your Dog Can Teach You About Love, Life, and Happiness - Sheryl Matthys - Страница 8

Why am I so hung up on handing over your metaphorical leash? Simple: your leash is a symbol of who is leading whom. Unless you’re a hundred-pound model walking a 180-pound English Mastiff, you are leading your dog. Which is as it should be, in a literal sense. And while for some of you, your dogs do physically pull or drag you, that’s a training/behavioral issue, and not what I’m addressing here.

Emotionally, we tend to guide our dogs rather than the other way around, just as when we get back inside the house and unclasp the leash we still feel that leader-to-follower connection that blocks us from learning.

Sometimes the teacher can benefit from becoming the student, and you can start right now simply by admitting that you don’t know everything there is to know about relationships and communication. Open your mind to the prospect that your dog may actually be able to teach you a few lessons. He can help you free your “inner dog” to feel, experience, and enjoy life like never before – like a dog does. But, you may be thinking, isn’t it a stretch to believe that a creature who can’t technically speak can experience, understand, and interpret human emotion and teach us something about communicating?

Well, babies can’t speak either, and yet we know they experience, understand, and interpret human emotion. Don’t they cry and fidget when angry and upset? Don’t they cuddle and coo when we’re being affectionate and attentive? Don’t their eyes, faces and even their little hands express a wide range of human emotions? Haven’t there been reams of research done on how much they understand, both in and out of the womb?

Are dogs so different? Dogs show:

•Submission, by rolling onto their back and licking at the mouth of another dog

•Affection, by nuzzling, wagging a lowered tail and/or angling their ears back and relaxing

•Aggression, by angling their ears forward, raising their hackles up, a raised, stiff tail, and/or a wrinkled nose

•Pain, by yelping

•Defensive fear, through a lowered, stiff body posture, dilated pupils, and/or a tucked tail

...just to name a few.

Yet it’s even simpler than that for those of us on two legs instead of four. How do we humans communicate? We speak to one another. We shouldn’t have to second guess or figure out or decipher what other human beings are saying to us. Ideally, we simply let them speak and hear what they have to say. But how often do we really say what we mean to one another? We mask what we may truly be feeling or would truthfully like to say behind our words.

Dogs don’t hide anything. Dogs don’t rationalize. Just like children, they are direct in what they do and need and feel. They are honest to the core about their needs, wants, and desires; they know no other way. Yes, we are a more socialized being, acting properly in social situations and not biting or growling when someone or something is bothering us. But we’re a long way from living honestly. We argue with a spouse over whose turn it is to take out the garbage or about spending money we don’t have, when we both know those are symptoms of a bigger problem. It’s usually what we’re not mentioning and what we’re not listening to that is the crux of the matter. Often we over-rationalize.

How do we achieve a more dog-like honesty? It’s a matter of simplifying life and finding the truth within us. Before responding to a situation with a knee jerk reaction, stop and think about how the serene dog would react to the matter at hand. What would your dog do? Probably not overreact, but rather react to the extent that the situation calls for – nothing more, nothing less.

Dogs “read” our emotions, our tears and fears, our anger and hurt, through our body language. Aside from a limited number of words and commands, they can’t understand what we say. To communicate, they must translate our body language into how we think, feel, and emote. There is no “Easy” button for our dogs; they have to communicate with us with two senses tied behind their backs: speaking and hearing (understanding) our language.

Elizabeth Ross knows this only too well, which is why she founded DoggedHealth.com as a resource for empowering dog owners to make educated health and wellness decisions for their dogs. Elizabeth says, “Dogs, unlike our human relatives or other loved ones, cannot speak to us to let us know what is wrong. They cannot say if it hurts, where it hurts, or what they need us to do.”

It’s a completely one-sided relationship, but it doesn’t have to be. And once your relationship with your dog becomes a more balanced one, with you listening as much as your dog does, doors will open for you to stronger human relationships. We can learn to read cues as a dog does. We can learn to stop relying so much on the words people say to us, and instead see through their words, read between the lines, and get to what they’re really saying.

Brian Hare, of Harvard University, once said, “Dogs have a talent for reading social cues in a very sophisticated way.” Perhaps that explains why many people feel completely comfortable bringing their dogs into social situations in which they might not feel comfortable alone.

I met Wendy and her dog at a Leashes and Lovers party (dogs are welcome) at a bar.

“Did you come by yourself?” I asked.

“I did,” confessed Wendy.

“Would it have been difficult for you without your dog by your side?”

“Yes,” Wendy agreed. “When I have my dog, it makes it much easier for me... guys want to talk to you, and girls want to know where you got your dog’s sweater...” And with her dog as her guide, she can listen “behind the words” for the truth in others’ intentions.

Remember, this is not just about slowing down and communicating with your dog. It’s about learning how your calm dog communicates, and seeing the world psychologically 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.