Puppy Love = MORE LOVE!

Learning to live with a Master Teacher Dog was a big order for my reluctant soprano. She hadn’t a clue about the grand plan attached to my behavior, that I was intentionally reflecting her well-concealed character deficiencies back to her… I had a higher purpose in mind.  Playing the role of an obedient, adoring canine companion, or Heaven forbid, a mascot… was not my mission on earth. I was there to teach. I materialized myself (in other words I appeared in full sweet-as-candy puppy disguise) in order force her to reflect upon what she was doing wrong. Specifically my focus was Ms. Em’s inability to live in each moment, to be conscious and aware.  I made her an offer she couldn’t refuse (and who could have?  I was a wriggling mass of joyous reunion) and we were a team. However, after I got out of that darlin’ ‘lil pup stage… I was fully prepared to show my teeth, to snarl and growl, make a horrendous scene… or play the gracious guru.  Whatever lesson the situation demanded, there I was… ready to play rough or to reward.  And don’t get me wrong; I am not congratulating myself for my acting ability.  I am simply illustrating the role I played for the benefit and spiritual development of narcissistic Ms. Em during her most turbulent years on and off the operatic stage.  If you have read Learning to Live with Fritz, you already know that.

Let’s get back to Freddy and the training of a puppy (as taught by many excellent, educated, experienced and well-meaning authors, trainers and canine scientists too). After the Inseeing of The Monks of New Skete and Cesar Millan’s rigorous pack-leader techniques, I highly recommended (whispered emphatically) to Ms. Em that yet another enlightening  and entertaining ‘dog book’ might be interesting to her and definitely helpful in bringing up her new pup.

                       

THE GENIUS OF DOGS: HOW DOGS ARE SMARTER THAN YOU THINK

 By Brian Hare & Vanessa Woods

I found author Peggy Tibbetts review on the Goodreads website to be far better than anything I could think up as a description of content and intention of the book The Genius of

Dr. Brian Hare

Dogs.Ruggedly handsome Dr. Brian Hare (Dr. Brian Hare is associate professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke University) creator of   Dognition and the stunning Vanessa Woods

(Australian scientist, author and journalist- feature writer for the Discovery Channel)  researched and wrote together.  The cool thing about this is that they could argue and edit the manuscript without ever leaving home since they are married to each other! Read how they got together in Vanessa’s fascinating book The Bonobo Handshake.

Now this is quite a trick. Can you imagine it?   An in-home scene: a bathroom … the shower is running … Miss Woods is shouting over the noise of cascading water: “Darling? What do you think about Chapter 10?  I am not happy with the leading paragraph …  Sweetheart … are you in there?”  Somehow this beautiful couple, each with their separate successful careers joining forces to write an entertaining and still very serious and scientific book about the intelligence of dogs sparked my memory.

Vanessa Woods & Dr. Brian Hare

No one who has ever watched a Thin Man film could forget “America’s favorite Mister and Missus” … Nick and Nora Charles. Along with their snappy repartee they were often chatting about and interacting with Asta, their clever fox terrier whom they both (and the American cinema-going public) adored.

For a laugh watch Asta:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKLCAHVKb0w

Yes, it’s all about LOVE. Hare and Woods are two young scientists who got together because of their love of animals. This love combined with their knowledge and individual research brought forth an excellent manuscript. In the case of Ms. Em it was not really her love of dogs that propelled her forward.  She was traumatized into writing a book about her experiences with me and her book was an exercise in trying to figure out why I acted the way I did.  Exit Fritz. Enter Freddy. The seven years between us has contributed to her understanding of what I was up to while on the earth plane doing what I did best: intimidate!  In the interim E. has read more than her share of books about dogs, puppy training and general information about canis lupus familiaris, the domestic dog.

Freddy, sporting his new Weasel toy, a gift from Aunt Eva.

Even though Bolonka baby Freddy has proven time and again that he has no talent for aggressive teaching skills, I can tell that Ms. Em is still fearful. She has persuaded herself that after the honeymoon is over (pup with his puppy mom) that Freddy might turn out to be … well, another Fritz.  She is SO frightened that she almost made another huge mistake: spending too much time studying!  I stepped in just in the nick of time and reminded her of the greatest truth of all… LOVE.  You can read and study and watch DVD’s all you want but every one of those activities occur somewhere else. Do you know what I am getting at? That somewhere else is not living in the NOW. All the time you are spending reading, watching or listening … even making lists and vowing to be the perfect puppy parent… you are not spending time WITH your puppy in the present moment. All you need is love.  Think about it. LOVE always occurs right now. Spend TIME NOW with your pup.

Dr. Hare has the right idea about being here now with your canine companions. His intelligence tests can help you classify and thus better understand what type of genius your dog might be. A charmer, an independent thinker … Oh, I could go on about this but since a video is worth a million words … just watch this report from ABC news about Dognition.

Enjoy!

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