4 Human Lessons From Raising A Puppy In A Pandemic
Prepare To Be Humbled
Meet Pearl, my ten-week-old Red Tri Australian Shepherd puppy. Yes, the cutest puppy in the entire world. My girlfriend and I picked her up a couple of weeks back and she is already a huge part of our little family.
Pearl is a saint. The first day home she learned her name, learned how to sit, played fetch, rolled over, pooped outside on cue, and to this day her bark is about as loud as her yawn. She is what they call a puppy prodigy (in my humble opinion).
I didn’t know that going into this puppy raising adventure that I would become a massive softy, brag in an article about how amazing she is or continuously talk like a baby to an animal as if she can understand what I’m saying, but I am, I do, and I’m proud of it!
In a few short weeks, Pearl has become our ultimate companion.
In addition to becoming my everlasting cuddle buddy, and a trusty source of love, she has also tested me in ways that didn’t seem possible. She has shown me things about myself that I thought I had all buttoned up. She has peeled back new layers of my psyche that I didn’t realize were there. She has tested me with my own emotions, jabbed at my vulnerabilities, and explored every orifice of my ego. Some days I feel like she is a little puppy shaman sent here to expand my heart, mind, and soul.
Raising little Pearl has been an incredibly challenging spiritual endeavor, and it’s only just begun.
What I have realized in less than a month is that raising a puppy can teach you a lot about how humans operate, especially during a global pandemic. We are dynamic, complex, ever-evolving blobs of cells and atoms full of all kinds of quirks and inconsistencies, and taking on raising a life form from another species can show us a lot about what it means to be human.
Lesson #1: Patience is a skill that will evolve forever
Yes, okay, this seems like an obvious first lesson. Raising a puppy takes patience, but so does being in the same room with a human who has lost theirs.
You’ve been there. Dale from Accounting hasn’t had his morning cup of coffee yet and is taking it out on the printer, smacking it incessantly for not printing fast enough. Just five feet away from your cubicle you can feel every smack, sigh, and grunt deep in your stomach, as he takes his rage out on an inanimate object that will never understand his impatience.
We do the same thing with puppies; hopefully, we never hit them of course, but we yell and react as if they can understand even a lick of what we’re saying when they can’t. We do this with fellow humans all the time too.
We assume a lot. We think that other humans know what we are trying to say at all times or understand the intent behind our actions or words, but sometimes they get misconstrued, misrepresented, or completely misunderstood. If someone doesn’t hear us for what we’re trying to say or reacts poorly to an action that had a good intent we tend to react just as poorly, creating a lot of unnecessary indirect emotions.
Instead of being patient and trying to change the words, or explain the action; instead of trying to understand what the other person is going through or experiencing, we react and subconsciously attack.
Once you find patience with a puppy the game changes. She will come when she’s called, listen to your tone, and behave much more obediently. Once you find patience with a human you will find understanding, common ground, and forgiveness.
And that leads me to my second lesson. But first, more Pearl.
Lesson #2: We have to forgive, but can’t forget
When a puppy has an accident at a time when you aren’t paying attention, it truly is your fault for not keeping an eye on her. Every puppy handbook on the planet says instead of yelling, acting out, or punishing her, you must forgive her for not knowing any better, let it go, and take her outside to where she should be going to the bathroom.
It’s easy to get caught up in the moment and quickly snap into an emotional reaction, but it always ends up more smooth in the end when you’re calm and forgiving, making sure you’re taking stock of the moment so that you can remember what you did wrong to ensure it doesn't happen the same way again.
The same thing goes for humans…
When someone wrongs us, acts irrationally, or betrays us, it is easy to want to snap back, get even or lash out, but that never results in anything productive. We create more emotion, more destructiveness, and more stress.
Instead of forgiving the person for their actions, or trying to meet them in the middle, we react at the same level of their emotions and get defensive based on how their actions made us feel.
I’m not religious at all, but Jesus nailed it when he said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
We can’t be angry with someone for doing something wrong if they are ignorant of what is right. Ignorance is a complete lack of knowledge, so truthfully they did not know better anyway. We don’t have to accept their ignorance, but we don’t need to spend precious emotional energy on unconscious ignorance that we will never be able to change.
Forgiveness should be applied in most places, but never forget what forced you into that place in the beginning. Learn from your poor behavior too, not just theirs.
Once you change your behavior and find forgiveness with a puppy she learns. She will find ways to communicate with you when she’s hungry, needs some water, or has to relieve herself. Once you change your behavior and find forgiveness with another human you will find that their behavior changes too and tensions begin to fall.
Speaking of behavior…
Lesson #3: The only behavior you can control is yours
When Pearl first came home she started to nip, bite, and jump at us. She got away with it for three days or so because we didn’t know how to handle it correctly and the behavior changes we made didn’t work.
Until they worked.
A puppy will only change its behavior if you change yours. It doesn’t matter how loud you scream “DOWN” when she’s jumping up if she doesn’t know that command yet she won’t react the way you want. You have to change your behavior to get the intended result, you have to adjust your style of communication in order to train how the puppy treats you.
It’s the same with people. We tend to let other humans away with bad behavior towards us because we haven't found a way to change our behavior to avoid it. And when I say behavior I mean our actions, not just our words.
Dominant humans are just like dominant dogs; desensitized to emotions and apathetic, with no concern about your needs. When a person is manipulative, repressive, or dominant, it takes some time to evade their controlling spell.
You’ve met this type of person before, whether it be in a relationship, at work or in a social situation. This person tends to carry with them overbearing narcissistic energy; monopolizing conversations, wielding insignificant power, and exaggerating their sense of entitlement to convince you they deserve your attention, effort, or emotion.
When training a puppy we have to alter our own behavior in order to show them what good behavior looks like. With humans, we can’t control a dominating situation by trying to change the other person’s behavior, we have to change our own in order to get the intended result.
A lot of this comes down to control. To avoid having your shoes ripped to shreds, or waking up to a giant turd beside your bed, you have to demonstrate positive responsiveness in order to create change in your pup. To avoid being controlled in any way by another human, you have to alter your behavior and show one another what it means to have mutual respect, admiration, and trust.
And just like with a disobedient pup, walking away from a person who doesn’t respect your boundaries has to be done from time to time in order to maintain your own emotional and physical wellbeing.
Lesson #4: Companionship is a buried treasure with a very simple map
It is no question that a puppy that is treated properly and loved unconditionally will grow to become a loyal companion. You will have a trusted cuddle buddy, just like me. Even when she does something wrong, acts out, or does something you don’t think is very puppy-like, you can still care for her, see her for what she is and believe that on the other side of the conflict is truth, connectedness, and love.
Instilling that companionship really isn’t that hard either, you just have to do one thing.
Don’t be a dick.
The same can be said for creating companionship in humans, but lately, with everything going on in the world, it seems as though we’ve lost the art and skill of true companionship.
We have a chance right now to come together and care for each other, but we’re letting political disagreements, virtue signaling, and widespread fear and hatred rule us to the point of destruction. We are using technology as protective gear to keep us from being hurt by the words we type into those manipulative platforms and express repressed anger without having to experience the true consequences of our words.
We have become digital dickheads; keyboard warriors on the hunt to prove someone wrong for what they believe to be right.
“What the world needs now is love, sweet love.”
The lyrics, made popular by Jackie DeShannon, couldn’t be more true right now and I believe the secret to living out this truth lies in the buried treasure of companionship.
Instead of waging war on one another by hammering thumbs into digital screens, can we come together consciously with openness, trust, and a willingness to be wrong?
If you’re reading this right now and relate to some of this unconscious behavior, can you look at yourself and see that the energy it takes to spew anger is hard, causes you pain, and leads to nothing more than a chronological list of your obvious insecurities?
Can you channel that energy into a different type of discomfort? The discomfort of putting down the cellular sword and hearing someone for what they’re really trying to say, seeing them for what they really are, acknowledging that they are just as afraid as you?
There is a lot of anger in this world, and it is coming to center stage now more than ever. There is no excuse for any of that, but what I’m curious about is if we can flip the script a bit and look at our differences from a new lens, without letting anyone off the hook for any unnecessary harm or cruelty.
Instead of waging war on one another through a keyboard, can we debate consciously with the willingness to have our minds changed and the ability to handle being misunderstood? Could that be the way we create the change we are longing for? Open forum discussion, with zero ego involved. Is that even possible?
I like to think so…
The Merriam-Webster definition of Companionship is ‘the fellowship existing among companions’ and in that definition is the link to the buried treasure.
We are one big fellowship in pursuit of the same mission. We all share the same goal; we’re all in this hoping to get to the other side with health, happiness, and freedom. We’re all equal in this journey and need to be more kind, understanding, and open. Every one of us is ignorant to some capacity. We must own that, accept it, and be willing to change.
It isn’t going to happen without more hurdles to jump over and I realize what I’m saying might sound a bit “easier said than done”, but it’s not, that is just your ignorance getting in the way. All you have to do, every single day is one very simple thing.
Don’t be a dick.
There is this tendency when dealing with a young dog to assume that “it’s not that bad.” A loud noise isn’t loud to us sometimes, but it can be absolutely terrifying to a new pup. A bath filled with an inch of water for a clean might seem like nothing to us, but to a dog who hasn’t experienced a bath before it might be incredibly awkward.
The point is that we all come at life with a certain level of fear and a certain level of love and the truth is that we will never understand those levels in another. The best course of action is to do your best to see that on the other side of someone else's behavior is a level of truth that they’re expressing that we will never be able to truly understand.
The only option we have to choose is love!
Impact You never really know the true impact you have on those around you. You never know how much someone needed that smile you gave them. You never know how much your kindness turned someone’s entire life around. You never know how much someone needed that long hug or deep talk. So don’t wait to be kind. Don’t wait for someone else to be kind first. Don’t wait for better circumstances or for someone to change. Just be kind, because you never know how much someone needs it. – Nikki Banas
This post is part of my $100,000 journey into re-building my mind, body, and inner-self through a series of uncommon experiences that completely transformed my life. Head over here to view more.
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