The other day I came across the following story, from the wonderful author and therapist, Bill O’Hanlon.
Some years ago, at the therapy group practice where Bill worked, a couple had sought relationship counselling. They were very embittered with one another, but couldn’t get a divorce because they had a dog that was the centre of their lives and neither of them was willing to give up even partial custody. When the therapist worked with them, he discovered that the wife resented her husband’s habit of coming home from work, not even acknowledging her when he walked through the door, but heading straight upstairs to shower. By the time he arrived back downstairs she would be so livid that they would get into a terrible argument. The therapist asked what the dog did when the husband arrived home, which was different from what the wife did. It turned out that the dog would run to the door, greet the husband and get a nice rubbing in return. The wife would wait in the other room for her husband to seek her out, which he didn’t do. The husband complained that the wife was not physically affectionate. He longed for her to cuddle up next to him on the sofa while they were watching television, and would complain sarcastically that he must have body odour when she sat some distance away from him. The therapist discovered that the dog was very assertive when he wanted affection; he would come over, sit next to the person from whom he wanted affection and push his nose under their arm if they were distracted or unresponsive, until they gave him a cuddle. The couple was given this task: they were to study the dog and make him their teacher and guru. When they saw how he got what he wanted from their partner, they were to model that behaviour and try it out with their partner. They had great fun with this and began to turn their relationship around, no longer wanting a divorce. For any relationship that you would like to shift in a positive or better direction, Bill suggests that you could think of an animal whose behaviour you could model – or, as he says, let Dog be your co-pilot…
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“Do not borrow trouble – the rate of interest is too high.” – Anne of Green Gables
With five canine members of staff in the household, there is often drama and excitement of some sort, and yesterday it was Daisy’s turn for the spotlight… Her accidental ingestion of something unfortunate on an empty stomach interrupted our leisurely Sunday morning rituals and resulted in frantic phonecalls to the vet and a speedy drive to the exceptionally kind and wise Stephen Hudson at Grace Lane Vets. The drive normally takes half an hour – to me, in the driving seat, one hand occasionally straying to caress the tiny, furry head at my side, it seemed to take an age. My imagination , always fertile, was propelled into overdrive as increasingly creative and disastrous images played out in my mind. I seemed to be stuck behind every slow-moving vehicle in North Yorkshire, including a large number of classic cars en route to a rally, for whom 40mph was a seldom-attained speed… When we finally arrived, Stephen greeted me with a smile and the news that his research had revealed it was pretty harmless to dogs, especially in the tiny amount which Daisy had eaten, so it wouldn’t even be necessary to make her sick. Daisy, cuddled up in my arms, disagreed with her medical advisor and summed up her opinion of her disturbed morning by returning her forbidden snack, with interest, over my shoulder. Returning home, at a much less frantic pace, she then happily tucked into her belated breakfast and danced out into the garden – her usual, carefree, dandelion-seed self. Daisy’s Teachings:
It’s been a beautiful spring weekend here in North Yorkshire. The garden is beginning to come to life and small green shoots are thrusting their way through the bare brown soil – the weeds as well as the garden plants…
Amongst the canine members of staff, Snippets has discovered yet another new joy in life; mysterious holes have started to appear around the base of the fern by the mint bed… Snippets will return to the kitchen with suspiciously muddy paws, tail waving happily and a big smile on her little woolly face. As the weather improves, the dogs enjoy spending more and more time exploring in the garden. A couple of days ago, this resulted in an exciting and illicit adventure as, unbeknown to me, the back gate through to the adjacent farm yard and fields had been left open… Theo was the first to return, appearing at the back door with all four legs decorated with a festival of burrs which lent him a rakish and somewhat bizarre appearance. Tutting as to where on earth in the garden he could have collected this unwelcome harvest, I set to work removing them, and only after a few minutes did it dawn on me that the rest of the garden was suspiciously quiet and alarmingly dog-free… Leaping out of the back door, I found the back gate wide open and, looking through, saw the four other staff members joyfully romping among the stalks of last year’s burdock, diligently collecting the dried seed heads in their fur. They were quite delighted to see me, running back into the garden and bringing with them their sticky velcro harvest for me to remove from feet, legs and tails. Theo, Lily, Snippets, Poppy & Daisy’s Teachings: Negative thoughts and beliefs can be compared to the seeds of the weeds that flourish in an uncared-for garden. As these beliefs and thoughts are planted in the mind, so they may grow and flourish, spreading quickly from one mind to another. Take note of what seeds you are picking up from the world around you – what thoughts and beliefs do you choose to allow to take root in your mind? What seeds are you sowing in the minds of others? Remember that the seeds of happiness, kindness, compassion and love will always bear a good harvest. Snippets, our newest canine member of staff, has been with us now for just over a week and her personality is starting to blossom as her comfort zones gradually expand. She has discovered the joys of scrabbling excitedly in the scrunchy dead leaves of the crocosmia plant on the terrace, especially when “hiding” from Theo during a game of chase. She was very excited indeed to see Tracy last week for her new makeover, and after a rather drastic short-back-and-sides is now half the dog that she was… the discarded fluff filled an entire carrier bag! A trip to the beach at the weekend with Daisy and Poppy for company raised her to heights of bliss, once she realised that she could safely leave our sides for a run – but even better if we ran with her!
But Snippets has a problem. We had a visit from our lovely business coach, Dr Alun Rees, yesterday, and when he arrived Theo gave his usual vociferous and enthusiastic schnauzer welcome, aided and abetted by the rest of his team. All except Snippets whom, after a spot of loud and horrified barking, shot up the stairs and retreated to the safety of our bed, from where she refused to be moved. We managed to have her in the same room during the evening, when we were all in front of the fire, but even the sight of Theo and Daisy cuddling up next to Alun on the sofa was not enough to convince Snippets that he is really a friendly and gentle dog-loving soul. Something in Snippets’s unknown past has created for her a belief that all unknown men are to be feared. For the other dogs, this is not their reality; they experienced the same situation and were more than happy to relax in Alun’s company, but Snippets believes it with all the fervency of her little doggy heart and, to her, the fear is very real in her mind because of that belief. We all have our own worries and fears; most of us are extremely good at the game of “What If?” and can create easily for ourselves some quite scary future “realities”, because reality is subjective. Next time you find yourself doing this, stop for a moment and consider whether or not your fear is really real. Is it actually true, in this moment, or is it just a belief or a thought of something that might happen? What happens if, instead of your “What If” being a negative possibility, you change it to be “What If… something positive”? You may find your fears are less real than you thought they were. For Snippets, of course, the only way to prove to her that her old belief is not true is with time, patience and a lot of love. Fortunately we can offer her all three of those in abundance, so that hopefully when Alun is back again in April, Snippets will be competing with the others for a place next to him on the sofa. Snippets’s Teachings:
We never knew poodles were so absorbent. Regular readers of the blog will remember that Lily has paid a couple of unscheduled visits to our pond in the past, but dealing with her weed-bespattered, dripping little form was nothing compared to the epic drama of dealing with a similar incident involving Snippets yesterday evening…
I watched the scene from the kitchen window and was powerless to intervene as she, being curious, jumped up onto the stone edge around the pond and then, with a leap of unsurpassing insouciance and elegance, launched herself innocently into the water which, judging from her reaction, was not quite the medium she had been expecting. Nothing daunted, however, she swam valiantly across the pond and hauled herself out on the far bank – by now liberally festooned with an assortment of weed and leaves, and her fur weighed down by an extremely large sample of pond water. After a bath in Lily’s usual hot-tub (aka the utility room sink) we then had to repair to the bathroom for specialist intervention with the shower hose – it turns out that poodle fur is very resistant to releasing anything it has captured, so poor Snippets had to endure a good deal of hosing and rinsing until the last vestige of pondlife was exorcised. As we had already discovered, poodle fur is also astonishingly absorbent and three bath sheets were required to dry her – even then we needed another towel for her to sit on during the evening as she continued gently with her dehumidifying process in front of the fire over the next few hours. She seemed quite content throughout with all the fuss – we’re just hoping she doesn’t decide to increase her possibilities of an Oscar nomination through further performances. Snippets’s Teachings:
After the sad loss of Hugo earlier this month, we’ve certainly noticed a feeling which I can only describe as “less dogness” in the house. Hugo had a big spirit, and although he was sleeping for 23½ hours out of every 24, he was still very much present. Even with the four other canine members of staff we were left with a space; a vacancy, if you will…
Of course, the laws of physics state that nature abhors a vacuum. We should not have been surprised, therefore, when a candidate obligingly appeared this weekend to audition for the Hugo-shaped space in our lives… Snippets is a black and white poodle – at first glance resembling a small, rotund and anxious-to-please sheep, she has a perpetually wagging tail and a pair of dark, liquid eyes under a cascade of ringlets which serve to give her a distinctly rakish air. Lily and Poppy came with us to the kennels to collect her and hardly batted an eyelid at the sudden appearance of this woolly little being who was lifted into the back of their car without so much as a by-your-leave. Within a few hours of her arrival, Snippets was becoming a part of the team. Despite being summarily removed from her old environment and placed somewhere with absolutely no familiar frames of reference, she seemed to take everything completely in her stride. Showing her round the house, she had no hesitation in trying out the sofas (and the beds!) for comfort and sat down by the Aga as if greeting an old friend. It’s interesting how like Hugo she is in some ways… the shape of her face, the expression of sweetness in her eyes, certain little quirks of character which are starting to emerge as she relaxes into her new home, and even her size all serve to remind us of our absent friend. Snippets is a very good fit for that Hugo-shaped space in our home and our hearts, and it seems as though, like all of us, she is exactly where she is supposed to be. Snippets’s Teachings:
I’ve spent a lot of the last two weeks studying and researching so I can add exciting new content to my courses later in the spring. (Bruce Lipton’s book The Biology of Belief is just incredible, and if you haven’t read it I can highly recommend it!) I enjoy sitting at the kitchen table to read and study; there’s a lovely view out over the garden for the times when I want to stop and contemplate something and, of course, the kettle is handy…
The canine members of staff also appreciate my kitchen study-time. They do have the difficult decision to make of whether to sleep on my knee, on the bench next to me, in the dog bed or on the rug in front of the Aga, but after a bit of shuffling they seem to cope with that. Theo makes particularly good relaxing noises from time to time and Daisy will do one of her famous squeaky yawns… Poppy snores and Lily’s feet twitch as she dreams… Yesterday afternoon I was working at the dental practice. The morning had been spent in study and I had left everything on the kitchen table to await my return. John was first into the kitchen when we arrived home and he discovered a strange little object in the middle of the kitchen floor… which turned out to be a tiny metal spring, amalgamated with a piece of chewed plastic – the mortal remains of the propelling pencil I had been using to make my notes. I’m not sure what was so attractive about the pencil (although it was pink, which seems to be Theo’s favourite colour) but fortunately the other items on the table had escaped relatively unscathed; I had to re-write the top page of notes (slightly torn) and my bookmark was discovered in the dog bed, but the textbook and the rail tickets which had arrived in that day’s post were untouched… I suspect a Theo/Lily joint venture here; they both love to indulge their wanton curiosity. Their motto seems to be, “If it smells of you, we want it; if it’s crunchy, we will eat it and if you leave it where we can reach it then it’s ours.” Theo has in the past demonstrated a talent for stealing things from the kitchen table (usually unguarded food, particularly after a dinner party) and Lily loves to chew crunchy things (recent casualties include an adaptor from a favourite lamp and my mother’s hearing aid, and previously a pair of John’s glasses – no squeaky plastic toy is safe). Together, mother and son, they make a formidable team! Theo and Lily’s Teachings:
Lily is an extremely determined lady. If a bit of biscuit (or a frozen pea – particular favourite!) makes a bid for freedom and escapes beneath a kitchen cupboard, then she will always be the first to draw attention to it by snuffling and scratching at it until either she manages to extract it or you give in and assist.
Since the ice has finally thawed on our little pond, Lily has discovered a new interest. Whatever it is (and frankly we probably don’t want to know) is so deeply fascinating that she now spends far longer in the garden, but unfortunately for Lily it’s something she cannot quite reach… None of the canine members of staff enjoy frolicking in water – Daisy is particularly funny in this respect and will go a long way out of her way to avoid stepping in even the shallowest puddle – so deliberately jumping in the pond is, for Lily, not an option. As she develops her strategies, however, she has clearly experienced some unwelcome feedback with a couple of early theories which resulted in her requiring some time for contemplation in the dogs’ hot tub (otherwise known as the utility room sink). Like Edison with the development of his light bulb, to Lily this does not mean failure – she is simply finding different ways which do not give her the result she wants. I am sure, given time, she will achieve her goal. Lily’s teachings:
We were granted the gift of a whole extra hour of weekend, thanks to the clocks changing, and I enjoyed Jim Connolly’s excellent blog on this subject yesterday.
Time is a precious commodity and, like water, we tend not to appreciate how precious until there is a shortage of it. Hugo is our oldest dog – at 14 we are now counting his remaining days like pearls slipping gently off a string. I’m not sure what happened to the tiny, fluffy soft-toy puppy we brought home in 1996, or where the glossy, energetic young dog has gone, who used to love the beaches in Guernsey. I remember walking along Vazon Bay one day and John saying he wished we could save a day of “young Hugo” to spend when he was old. Hugo can no longer walk very far, but still enjoys a potter around the lawn and has a prodigious appetite for fallen apples, which he crunches up with tremendous satisfaction. He can no longer jump onto the sofa, but with a bit of assistance he can make it onto the furry beanbag which adapts itself very comfortably to his arthritic little body. Ensconced in front of the fire, he dreams dreams which make his feet twitch as if he’s running once more along Vazon beach – I think maybe he spends more time as “young Hugo” than we know. Hugo’s Teachings:
Daisy is our youngest member of staff. At just turned two, she is endearingly barmy, with a lightness of foot that always brings to mind a floating dandelion seed. Sometimes, when she is running, she will make a flying leap into the air, seemingly for no other reason than sheer joy of living.
I had to take her to the vet’s on Wednesday for her annual injection; a procedure to which she took grave exception, nobly demonstrated when she was volubly sick all over the consulting table. I expected that when we arrived home she would be a bit quiet, but no – apart from a tendency to demand more cuddles, she was her own, tiny dancing self again. Daisy’s teachings:
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Joanna Taylor
...and the Canine Members of Staff Archives
June 2023
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