Dogs > People

It's a sunny Sunday late morning - perfect for an outing if not for the standing water and knee deep mud in most grassy places.  Ah such is life in a climate changing Rust Belt city.  But, there will be time for a walk later, but for now, I'm sitting on the edge of my office chair because the cat refuses to relinquish the rest of it (to her mind, it's Sunday, and I'm not supposed to be up here) while Geddy and Sirius lay next to me and Rooney's on the landing not far off (trying to split the difference and be in proximity to absolutely everyone), patiently waiting for me to get bored with my appointed task up here so I'll go play with them, but content at the moment.

And that's the thing about dogs - they don't really need or expect much of us.  I think I put a lot more pressure on myself to be a good dog mom than they demand of me.  And that is how it should be, I think.  I need to hold myself to a higher standard than the dogs do.

I've been thinking about how easily and fully dogs accept and love us - even when we're not the best version of ourselves.  Maybe this has been on my mind lately because there were so many stories that came out of the severe and long cold snap about owners leaving their pets outside to freeze.  Those kinds of stories haunt me.  I look at my dogs, sprawled out at my feet and think how simple it is just to have them in with me.  How simple it is to just provide them with the basics.  It's the next level of care that I get to feeling guilty about.  Like do I bathe them enough, and with the right kind of shampoo, and I waited to long to clean out their ears, and I need to cut Sirius' dew claws, but they're black, so I'm scared to catch the quick, and on and on, like any worried parent.  But they don't care about any of that.

I was listening somewhat distractedly to the local sports talk radio on Friday.  It's the NHL All Star break and the Steelers are out of the playoffs of course, and they've exhausted the "Pirates suck" discussion pretty much for an off-season, so they started talking about raising puppies, because two of them have one, and there was literally nothing else to talk about.  One of them espoused the theory that raising a puppy is as hard as an infant.  I'll grant you that's true for a brief period of time.  They don't sleep through the night, can't control their bladders and have to be watched constantly.  But it's a fleeting moment in time.  And then they become the glorious companions that I have in my three dogs. 

Dogs will forgive you almost anything.  No, I take that back.  They'll forgive you anything.  And sometimes they shouldn't.  We don't have to treat our dogs like they're show dogs.  They're happy just to be companion animals, even when they have some mud on their fur.  So I have a hard time understanding how it is people can't manage to give the animals in their care even the basic level of that care.  And if you treat a dog - who expects and demands so little of you - like that, what are you doing with and to the rest of the individuals in your life?

So, as mine lay at my feet while I start the laborious work to do my taxes, I'll count my blessings:

1.

Sirius

 2.

Geddy

3.

                                   Rooney

And if you know of anyone who keeps their dogs on a chain out of doors, my office floor has lots of room for more - tell them I'll come right over and take them off their hands.

It might be sunny and pretty today, but the snow and cold isn't done with us, so keep your pets warm and safe folks!  And then bask in the warmth of their gratitude when you do!