Dog Words

My dog seems to know a num­ber of words and phrases. If you want to really get his adren­a­line going, just tell him, “there’s a cat in YOUR back yard.” That is all it takes. Just open the back door and watch him bolt out with a growl. Some­times there really is a cat in the back yard — usu­ally one big­ger than he is. The cat takes his time going over the fence. The cat is big­ger and faster, but after all, the back yard belongs to “Killer” (one of many names I use for my lit­tle Daschund dog).

“Dog­ger” also knows and fully under­stands (with ears hang­ing low) the sen­tence: “I’m sorry but you can­not go.” He just sits there and mopes as I head out the door. The dog is a good sport about it. He knows I will be back and say the key word indi­cat­ing that he is going with me. That word is the magic word — “okay!” When I say that word, he begins to bounce. I open the front door and he races me to the car (he always wins).

If you want to really get him going, ask him the fol­low­ing ques­tion: “Do you want to go see the horses?” Ask that ques­tion and you have a really crazy dog on your hands. He loves the Litchfield’s horses. They scare him to death, but he finds them irresistible.

Does the dog know the words, or is he just read­ing the con­text and my tone of voice? Bet­ter yet, have I become pre­dictable to him? Beyond even that, I think he reads my heart. He has every­thing down from words, to con­text, to body lan­guage, to sub­tle shifts in my spir­i­tual moods and expressions.

It is a les­son for how I deal with myself and oth­ers. It is not my words as much as it is my heart. We read the heart beneath the words rather eas­ily. There must be con­gruity between sounds uttered and actions taken. We humans do not need a lot of words — we just need a lot of heart. This is how we are like our pets. Kind­ness and some­thing as sim­ple as going for a walk can heal just about anything.