A lot of the finding out about your dog is dependent on first knowing who you are.
Can we do this in a dog session or a dog class? Or is it best to do it outside of owning a dog?
In truth we can bring self awareness to everything we do whatever that may be, so whether you get to know yourself a bit better outside of dog class or inside a dog class doesn’t make much difference.
It is definitely easy to get to know yourself a bit better in a dog class cause dogs reflect our behaviour, but also you come back over a month or 6 week period and along the way are guaranteed to see all your little foibles! Equally you could book in for one session or just read this blog or you are already half way there as you are into self awareness and just need a polish, basically there is no one way to know who you are.
But here is a great start point, one that also helps with the most important basic premise of living with a dog. If you are still here after this, then congratulations you are ready to understand more of who you are and to find out who your dog is.
We think our dogs love us – they do not.
To help understand this statement better, we have to first look at what loving someone truly means.
I love you. You love me. Is this something we just say when we are cuddling together or over the phone when signing off? Or is loving you something that I offer as part of the way I live and walk beside you? Do I say I love you and then hold onto all the mistakes you have ever made in our relationship and trot them out when it suits me? Or do I love you by clean slating our arguments and fall outs and beginning the next day fresh? Do I say I love you and then bunk off when I get home and bury myself in the TV? Or do I love you in the caring way I cook a meal, or the purposeful way I attend to my chores? If you get my drift here I am describing love as a relationship where situations happen or are caused to happen by two humans and from those situations the opportunity to grow and evolve together is offered.
Dogs can’t do that.
A dog responds to our vibration continuously. This reflection confirms who we are and in turn is mostly misinterpreted by humans to mean we are ‘loved’ by the dog. Here is where all the sticky emotional outpourings are showered on the dog. In turn the dog gets used to this stickiness as some form of normal and so continues with the behaviour.
The great question to ask here is why do I need my dog to love me when my dog is actually responding to and therefore reflecting the power and strength and gorgeousness of who I am in every moment it is with me. OR my dog is reflecting the need or control or anxiety or up tightness or discomfort I feel in the world. This is all the dog can do – reflect the vibration of what we live in our everyday.
So who are we in this?
Do I read my dogs behaviour and dismiss it? Do I read my dogs behaviour and notice how gorgeous I am? Do I ignore my dogs behaviour ? Do I reward the dogs’ behaviour by indulging it? Do I try to control my dog or train the dog’s bad behaviour to become ‘good’ behaviour? Good luck with the last one cause if you don’t shift up whatever the dog is responding to you are going to have a tough job ahead of you.
So if the dog is only ever responding to my vibration what does living with a dog look like?
