Bad days are something that we all have, be it from having no idea why (which incidentally makes you madder!), or because of something awful that happens; sometimes we just dwell, even though we know full well that it’s in our power to stop. I have these crap days just like anyone, but you know what never fails to penetrate through the layers or misery and angst? Happy dogs!
There’s nothing quite like a happy dog as far as I’m concerned, but in particular, a happy dog who is happy to see me. You know what I’m talking about, when you look at that dog, and the dog sees you looking, and gets all excited because it’s hoping it’s going to get a fuss, and then when you make it clear you want to give it a fuss, and the dog starts pulling on its lead to get to you, because it really wants a fuss from YOU.
That’s the bit for me that does it, when that dog wants to come and see ME, nothing else matters to that dog in that moment, it wants to come over and meet ME and get a fuss from ME. There’s nothing quite like that feeling, and there are a few choice encounters with such dogs that sit forever in my memories and heart, times when I’ve been particularly upset about something, and then this sweet dog has singled me out and made it clear that in that moment I am the most important thing.
Dogs are great, most people agree with that, and I think one of the things that makes them so great is that is that they have no shame in their unbridled joy, they just feel it and get all over excited. Seeing this bring us great joy because, as a social species, we love to see other people (and creatures) happy. Little kids also allow themselves to feel this unbridled joy, which makes sense considering dogs are essentially just overgrown wolf puppies, which brings me nicely to my last thinking point and reason why this makes me so damn happy: our similarity with wolves.
Much like wolves, human kids have this unbridled joy, as do wolf pups, but then as we get older we control our reactions more, we still feel all the same emotions, but we learn more about appropriate reactions (admittedly sometimes this goes too far and people control their emotions too much to the point we stop feeling them properly and stop being ourselves, but right now I’m talking more about a reasonable amount of control), just like adult wolves do.
Thinking about this reminds me how similar we are to wolves and in turn to the rest of life, and anything that reminds me of how connected we all are makes me happiest of all!
This was a short post about something I’ve been thinking about for a while, so enjoy some nice pictures of dogs living in the moment and loving life where the rest of this blog should be:
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