10/24/12—Applying Dog Logic

Today's Paw: The Sun from the Dog Tarot. Do you feel safe knowing you have a plentiful supply of kibble and water? What do you wish your forever parents would change to make your life easier? Or are you happy with things the way they are?

As I'm sure many of you would think, I should be shaking with pure joy and posting through my tears because I finally have a Dog Tarot in my midst. But I'm really just mildly atwitter. Because it's not a tarot deck. It has 18 Major Barkana cards and 12 Minor Barkana cards. Which means it's nothing like tarot at all. But it's called The Dog Tarot, so that makes it closer to a dog tarot than any other EVER!

*heavy sigh* I have no idea why this is so hard for tarot creators to do. Really, people...8000 cat decks and NO dog decks? *heavy sigh*

Anyway, the thrust behind this deck is that we can use it to read our dogs. Whatever. I was really excited about it because I thought it would be an actual dog tarot, but it's not.

But let's not let that get us down. Because the important news is that The Sun card means your doggie loves you and is happy to have you as a mommy (or daddy)! Hooray!

This is something I've been wondering about a lot lately, because I'm not really sure Mystic is 100% on board at our house. Sometimes I think she's just using this situation to her advantage. Sometimes I think she sees me as the person who was hired to feed her and keep her in water and treats. Whenever I've missed one of my duties...like say the water bowl has gone dry...that's when she misbehaves. And I also think she doesn't think it's fair that she has to be crated when I leave and the other dogs don't.

I remember wondering if Magick was on board when she first came here, too. She was a different kind of insane and troublemaking, but still a struggle. There's a lot to be said about adopting dogs that are, like, four years old. The younger dogs are, the more crazymaking they are. Regardless, at any age it takes time for them to settle in, get used to house rules and bond.

But with Magick I learned something interesting. The dog will commit when you commit. They'll come on board when you come on board. They'll let down their walls when you do. So clearly I have some work to do. I mean, I'm committed to her forever. That's not a question. I take that responsibility seriously. But that's a responsibility commitment. It takes some time to develop the "I will love you like I birthed you from my own loins" commitment. It's inevitable that's going to happen, but it hasn't happened yet.

And it doesn't make it easier when I go out in my back yard and find my plants knocked over and my planters with holes in them that are suspiciously the size of puppy fangs. Sometimes she finds water in the bottom of the planters. And the water bowl was dry. I'm usually on top of these things, but sometimes I fail.

That's another thing Magick, in particular, taught me. There's usually a behavior of mine that I can change, instead of expecting the dog to change. With Magick, it was easy to keep her from chewing shoes when I put a baby gate between her and all the footwear. Likewise, if I make sure the well never runs dry, after a few months of plentiful water, Mystic probably won't freak if it ever goes dry. She still doesn't know I'm her forever mommy. She still doesn't know she no longer needs her scavenging skills. She still doesn't know that her life has changed forever. It all comes with time.

Applying dog logic to your life, what might the people in your life not know about the security they have with you? What behavior can you change, rather than expecting someone else to change? What would happen if you hopped "on board" first, rather than waiting for someone else to?