6 Beautiful and Timeless Life Lessons I Learned from My Dog

Sometimes four legs can see more than two.

This weekend I visited my family. While I love to see my mum, dad and grandparents, at least half of my anticipation for going back home comes from seeing our dog. His name is Ares and he goes crazy for cheese and belly rubs.

While cuddling and petting him brings me a ton of joy, the real value comes from watching him going about his doggie life.

Our family has had dogs for the majority of my life now and living with them for all these years has shaped my character and made me the person I am today.

Through all this time I spent with our (and someone else’s) dogs, I learned some important life lessons that only a four-legged goof with a cold nose can teach you.

Always be Curious

In some ways, dogs never grow old. Yes, they learn to sit down when told to, to go outside when they have to pee and that barking at their human’s neighbor is not something they are supposed to do. But they always stay curious.

No matter what I have in my hands, Ares tries to sniff it. If you bring him into a new place, he runs around and checks everything out. Going for a walk on a new trail? He won’t stand still for a single second, putting his nose everywhere, only stopping to listen to two squirrels arguing over their nuts.

The result? He finds the most interesting stuff (interesting for dogs, anyway) all the time. Old bones. Food scraps. Wild animals. The glasses my grandma lost in her garden.

Sure, the first time I showed him a lemon and he bit into it was a rather unpleasant experience for him, but he learned his lesson.

The takeaway here is that without a good deal of curiosity, you will miss out on a lot of the things that life has to offer and ultimately get stuck in your old ways.

Curiosity is one of the cornerstones of success and excellence.

Without asking questions and trying things out, learning and advancing become close to impossible.

Explore new paths. Reach out for new opportunities. Seize life’s endless possibilities. Your golden bone might be just around the corner. But to find it, you have to be curious enough to explore that corner.

Forgive, But Don’t Forget

When Ares was young, we jokingly called him our little devil. Even though we took him for walks for at least three hours a day, he didn’t run out of energy. Combine that with the impetuous character of an adolescent doggie who doesn’t have perfect control over his movements and body yet and you’re bound to have accidents happen.

One time when I got home, he jumped up out of joy and right into my face as I was bending down to untie my shoes. That was the only time I ever got loud with him.

Then, something interesting happened. Although I apologized to him and gave him an extra slice of cheese and a belly rub, he was kind of upset for the rest of the day. But the next time I got home, he came running and sat down right in front of me until I took off my jacket and shoes. Then, and only then, he got up, wagged his tail and gave me the loving welcome only dogs can give you.

Moral of the story? Forgive, but don’t forget. Accept that sometimes people do things that hurt. But there is no point in being angry or filled with bitterness and resentment. It doesn’t do you any good. Instead, learn your lesson, but go back to wagging your tail and being happy as soon as you can. Don’t hold grudges.

Too often we humans are too weak to forgive, too weak to let go of the grudges we are holding. Don’t let yourself get eaten away by your bitter feelings.

Ares didn’t forget that the human needs some time to take off his shoes when he gets home. But he forgave me that I yelled at him. He didn’t hold any grudges. And that is why he can go on living his happy doggie life and wag his tail when someone comes home, day after day.

Look For the Light

I live in Germany. While summers over here can be pretty nice with a lot of sunshine, our winters usually suck donkey balls, especially where I come from. No joke. It’s cold, rainy and grey for the most part. But every now and then, we get lucky and the sun cuts through the clouds for a while.

My grandma has a glass door connecting her living room and balcony. It is one of the only places in the house where the sun rays can come in and reach the floor during winter.

And whenever that happens, you are sure to find my dog right in that spot. Even if it only is a tiny little bit of sunshine for a few minutes, he finds it and enjoys every last bit of it.

We humans, too, should seek the sun. Not only in a literal sense (although your Vitamin D levels will thank you), but also in a metaphorical one. No matter how dark or grueling life gets, there will always be a shiver of light somewhere to look for. Focus on the positive, however small it may be. After rain comes sunshine, even if you can’t see it right now. And if you can find some sunshine during the German winter, you can find it anywhere.

Live in the Moment

Whenever I look at Ares, I can see that he is thoroughly enjoying whatever he is doing at that very moment. Eating, fetching a stick, snoring, sniffing other dogs’ butts.

Dogs live in the moment. Whatever they do, they get lost in it and forget everything else. When they want to play and run around, they play and run around. They don’t think about the last time when they tripped and nose-planted into the dirt, even if their dog-girlfriend saw it. They don’t understand why you are always compelled to write an e-mail, work on a project, make phone calls or read a report and don’t have time for play. A dog simply does.

And to be honest, I think he is right. Apart from paying the bills and doing the part of our work that fulfills us, why do we humans always go, go, go? Why do we always strive for more, think about the next gig and worry about what might happen tomorrow? Why do we get stuck in the rat race?

When Ares is looking at me, carrying a large stick, jumping up and down out of excitement, I often wonder what’s going on in his head. He doesn’t have a care in the world, all he cares about is enjoying the playtime.

We humans can use more of that and less of the stress, regret, and worries about the future we often occupy ourselves with. Take a moment to appreciate the little things that are happening right now. Forget about the past and the future. The earth will keep turning, if you worry about it or not.

Look Past Appearance

We humans come in all sorts of different sizes, shapes, and looks. Big, small, dark and light skin, pointy and crooked noses. And while the outer appearance says very few things about a person’s character, it still has a large influence on our attitude towards a person or how sympathetic we expect them to be. (The word character actually comes from the Latin carecter, which meant a “symbol marked or branded on the body”)

Dogs don’t care about appearance. You could walk in with a third ear on your belly and half your teeth missing, but if you are nice to them, they are going to like you back.

Looking past the outer appearance isn’t always easy. If you think you are immune to making subconscious judgments based on looks, I encourage you to take one of the Harvard Project Implicit stereotype tests.

While a person’s appearance is a quick way to gauge their potential character, often we have a hard time rethinking our first impression.

I have seen people in suits do and say the nastiest things while I have seen shabby bums give their sandals to a friend of mine because he was walking barefoot. Obviously, this can also go the other way round.

The point is that looks can be deceiving. Look past them. Judge a person’s character by their actions and words, not by their appearance.

Be Yourself

One of the funniest things Ares does is sniffing or licking his rear paw, yawning and then, by accident, closing his mouth with his paw in it. Caught by surprise every time, he then gives you a very confused look, not knowing what just happened and why this big, hairy paw ended up in his mouth. I’d say that overall he is a pretty smart dog, but in moments like these, he’s an absolute goof. And that’s why I love him so much. Because he is 100% himself. He doesn’t care about what I might think of him. He’s a dog and therefore, he behaves as dogs behave. And he is totally happy doing just that.

When you get a dog, you expect them to do what a dog does. Fetch sticks, eat, sleep, bark and pee on the carpet when they are young.

Dogs don’t have to pretend to be someone or something else because most people who get a dog love them for being a dog. This way, people who love dogs for being dogs get together with dogs, who love being dogs. Perfect match. (Take a note, Tinder!)

Hunters get hunting dogs. Fit people who love to run get fit dogs who love to run. Elderly people who are somehow limited in their physical ability tend to get small dogs that are easy to handle and don’t need to go for three-hour walkies.

This principle can be applied to humans as well. If you are 100% yourself and don’t pretend to be someone else, you will attract people who love you for who you are.

Be yourself and you will attract the people that are a good match for you, not for the person you pretended to be.

Summary

‘Dogs are our link to paradise. They don’t know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring — it was peace.’

— Milan Kundera

We humans are inherently different from dogs. Although we only have to coordinate two legs, our lives are way more complicated. We have jobs to go to, car insurance to pay and shopping to do. But by constantly running around and working we forget the joy that the simple things in life can bring. So sometimes, we need someone to remind us of that.

Dogs can learn a good deal from us about sitting down, not chewing through shoes and manners at the table. We can learn a bit or two from them about what it takes to be a good person and live a fulfilled life.

Because being a little bit of a dog makes you a whole lot of a better human.

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