Birth
August 31, 2009
I am still finding my feet with my blog, mainly because I’m wanting to share my thoughts about soulful connections between dogs and people and within that I get all bottle-necked by a sense of vulnerability.
That’s ironic given that one of my aims is to help other people feel more confident talking about the depth of relationship they have with dogs they’ve loved!
So today I am jumping right into the deep end of soulfulness and telling the whole world that I had my dog at my baby’s birth. (So if the idea of that makes you feel squeamish and you’re not in the mood for a human birth story with a canine slant, don’t read on, you won’t like it! Scroll down to the story “Listening” instead which is about about dogs helping children to read! I understand that there are cultural sensitivities around this issue and at the same time as wanting to support others like me, I also don’t wish to offend anyone.)
A few weeks ago I happened upon a blog about helping prepare your dog for the arrival of your baby. I left a comment about my experience which I think may go against the tide of information out there on this subject. So aware of being a lone wolf howl in the wilderness, here goes …
For various reasons, (including naively thinking everyone ‘aimed’ for a home birth!) I decided to have an ‘active home birth’. I won’t go into all that rigmarole, suffice it to say I found a wise home birth midwife.
At our first meeting I told her I wanted my dog with me at the birth and that I needed a midwife who would welcome him there(!) No, really I did! WELCOME him there, I mean not just OK put up with a dog at the birth – EW! – but welcome him! (I realised that he was better off not there at all if he was made to feel unwelcome so this was really very important.)
Since she had attended thousands of home births, nothing but nothing could remotely unsettle this wonderful midwife so without hesitation she said she loved dogs and that would be very fine.
It’s only really looking back on this that I can see how blessed we were.
Why did I want Bubba at the birth? Because first of all, he was, and still is, a magnificently GOOD dog, an absolute treasure of a dog, an extremely sweet-natured Malamute.
He was also a dog who was used to being an only dog and the focus of much attention. So I felt it would be disastrous to ‘exclude’ him from the baby even from the get-go – that simply the act of being excluded would create anxiety for him which would cause all kinds of problems.
Moreover, I felt that him being present during the labor and birth would not only allow him to feel included as usual but might instantly stimulate a ‘pack mentality’ towards the baby of “this baby/squirming, wailing, tiny human is part of my pack”. I mused that being a primal Malamute he may have primal intuition and remember his ancestors days keeping babies warm in igloos.
My biggest concern was that I would become distressed during labor and that Bubba might naturally become distressed in that atmosphere. Well, I most certainly DID become distressed during labor but Bubba slept through practically the whole thing – hours and hours of it – as if he’d been at zillions of births!
There was the midwife reading her novel and The Dog snoring and twitching his paws, both occasionally looking up with a somewhat bored expression. Although this is funny, they were also together creating a very calming energy for me.
After my homoeopath was called out at midnight to give me a remedy and the baby was born with her arm up the side of her head, waving, the midwife took hold of her shoulders, I sat up dazed and saw – Bubba gently sniff the brand new baby’s head once for a moment, more like the tiniest of nose kisses, voluntarily and graciously move away and lie down.
It was a beautiful, wondrous act to witness. (And how grateful I am to the midwife for allowing that moment since many would have unthinkingly and understandably from her point of view, pushed a dog away.) I am very proud that my daughter was touched first by a wise midwife, second by a dog and third by me!
I have written perhaps too much but there we are. I wanted to express an alternative way of being for dogs and babies. If you have a good dog, a dog you really feel is a wise, loving and kind dog, be confident about giving them the credit they deserve, trust your instincts and trust your dog.
I will write again about babies and dogs – especially the gift a baby has by having a dog in their life – but in the meantime wanted to say for now that there has not been a single unloving moment between Bubba and my daughter, years later.
Weekend
August 29, 2009
Here’s an old dude reading to his dog in 1905. Oh, wait! It’s Theodore Roosevelt! Is the 26th President of the United States reading aloud to his sweet pup? A great man has to have some quality rest time while brokering peace between Russia and Japan in June 1905. Looks like he knew the benefits of a good book in one hand and a pup in the other. A year after this beautiful photo was taken he was awarded The Nobel Peace Prize. [Photographer, sadly, unknown.]
Listening
August 25, 2009
Photo taken and adapted from READing Paws website
We all know about how powerful listening can be. And you might know that dogs are the most excellent listeners. But here’s something new about what amazing things can happen when a dog is listening.
I am seeing a real rise in the collective consciousness about dogs listening to stories and people reading to dogs. Yes, OK, I admit this could be because I’ve just set up a Google Alert for “reading to dogs”!
Anyway, while I wrote a book of stories for dogs with the original view that the book be in a way a dog toy – that your dog might even have a copy of their doggy storybook in their toy box and might even bring it to you to have a story read to them. (In the same way dogs bring us their other toys to play with – in Bubba’s case we are always presented with “Sheep” when there is any human hair-brushing going on, go figure …)
I now discover, thanks to Google Alert and the odd Google search that reading to dogs is a growing phenomenon practised by some surprising people.
People like volunteers at the RSPCA Radcliffe Animal Shelter who are reading to dogs as part of the RSPCA’s glorious “Read and Relax” program. The program was implemented by Assistant Manager Ella Herring to help settle rescue dogs and let them get used to calm, non-threatening people contact. Yes, reading dogs a story to help rehabilitate them! Makes complete sense to me.
It also apparently makes sense to UK Dog Training Expert, Carolyn Menteith who says reading to rescue dogs is a good idea.
I have already sent RSPCA Radcliffe a copy of Beef Casserole for the Dog’s Soul, of course. I do hope other animal shelters pick up on this initiative. I think reading to dogs is a wonderful way for volunteers to give rescue dogs some loving in a quiet, deep way and agree wholeheartedly with Ms Menteith’s sensitive comments.
Then there’s READing Paws – a magnificent initiative by Merilee P. Kelley. READing Paws’ Mission is to improve children’s literary skills – by using registered therapy dogs. The dogs listen to children reading aloud to help them with their reading skills. Reading to a dog is so much better than reading aloud to a) yourself or b) a person who might laugh or groan when you make a mistake.
Send a donation to READing Paws here. And, yes, I’ve sent two copies of Beef Casserole for the Dog’s Soul to READing Paws – one especially for the gorgeous Isabelle who I think is like a therapy dog ambassador. Isabelle excels at being read to by children! I’m sure adults as well as children line up to read to this divine creature! See the wftv.com report (including video) of Isabelle and her good work here. There’s also a photo slideshow of Isabelle being read to by various children which makes me feel really moved and teary. It’s a beautiful thing.
Now I see that Nickelodeon has an article about therapy dogs visiting libraries all over the US to help children learn to read.
I’m going to find out more about these marvelous initiatives and report back soon!
Weekend
August 22, 2009
Bliss. The weekend. Quiet time together. How lovely life is when you can have a person read you a bedtime story for dogs, close your eyes for a moment and let that moment drift on into a little nap, your head resting on a thigh and a warm arm around you.
Bubba and Donny have a peaceful, rejuvenating nap after reading Silly Dog from Beef Casserole for the Dog’s Soul which funnily enough, ends with “do you want a cuddle Bubba?”……. zzzzzz
Crystal
August 20, 2009
Bubba is looking askance because he’s watching one of his cats heading for the kitchen!
I’m warning you now I’m a person who likes going off on tangents. While my intention was to write about our temporary dog tags being featured on the moo.com blog and how honoured I am about that, I’m taking a tangent about the healing power of crystals for dogs.
Here’s the link – I was thinking of our dog tags and how cute Bubba’s ‘good dog’ one looks on his collar and how everyone smiles at him when he wears it, when I remembered the strange incident of the crystal I put on my first Malamute, Boo’s collar years ago.
I saw this beautiful, rough clear quartz crystal on a stall at Paddington Markets in Sydney. Ooo, that would look fantastic against Boo’s white fur chest I thought, it’s like a piece of mineral ice for a snow dog – plus, it has healing power.
I love the whole idea of dog jewellery, although this is the one and only time I have remotely practised it.
I put the beautiful crystal on a piece of black leather thonging tied it to Boo’s collar and whoa, how magnificent it was. I wondered why more people didn’t adorn their dog’s collars with healing crystals.
Well, em, maybe they knew better because here’s the freaky thang. The very next day as Boo walked into the kitchen and I turned to look at him it self-exploded!
No, I am not kidding! It didn’t touch anything, was against his soft, cushiony fur and yet – smash! It was in pieces on the floor. Now, I’m not wanting to frighten everyone or anything but whoa – all that stuff about the power of crystals is stuff I became very respectful about. It seems crystals vibrate and I can only guess that there was some kind of vibrational connection between Boo and the crystal that went to such a high frequency that the crystal exploded.
There was no injury of any kind to Boo. He didn’t even notice (laid-back kinda furdude). So I raced off to a get a book to study what the heck happened (no google back then) and all I could find to rationalise the whole thing was that when a crystal is ‘no longer needed’ it either gets lost or ‘breaks’.
So we now use lovely temporary dog tags with ‘good dog’ and ‘woof’ and ‘bow wow’ and suchlike for dog jewellery. If you’d like a couple of temporary dog tags, let me know and I’ll post them to you.
In the meantime, I’d love to know if anyone has any anecdotes about using crystals with their pets.
Cat
August 17, 2009
illustration credit: the legendary Kathleen Hale (who I hope is pleased in heaven and forgives me for scanning her gorgeous image from our copy of her beautiful book)
Do you know the Orlando (The Marmalade Cat) series of lusciously illustrated books by Kathleen Hale?
They were first published in the 1930’s and are rather quirky.
Ms Hale wrote them based on her own real-life Orlando the marmalade cat. We love Orlando Keeps A Dog. It reminds me a little of our Cat Dog story in Beef Casserole for the Dog’s Soul who is rewarded by the King of Cats.
I especially like the way Ms Hale describes The Dog (Bill, based on her own well-meaning but boisterous Bill the Standard Poodle) when he, and his own cat buddy, the ‘cinnamon-colored cat’ first apply for the advertised job of being a pet for three kittens:
“Thoroughly pleased with himself, the dog stretched his hind legs and the cinnamon-colored cat copied him; he stretched his front legs and the cinnamon-colored cat did likewise. The dog wagged his tail, which was tufted like a palm tree; his nose reminded Twinkle of a fat wet prune; he laughed, and the tip of his long pink tongue was shaped like an iris petal; there was a patch of white curls on his chest as though he wore a tiny ostrich feather; he smelt deliciously of warm dog-biscuits; he rolled his chestnut-colored eyes mischievously, showing white corners like little crescent moons of hard-boiled egg.
“We wish to apply for the job,” he said, speaking for the cinnamon-colored cat as well. “Sometimes we’re honest and sometimes we’re clean, but we’re always loving.”
Ah! “he smelt deliciously of warm dog-biscuits”! We read this book aloud and we notice Bubba dog listening too even though it is not technically a story for dogs.
Soul
August 13, 2009
Do dogs have souls?
Wait a minute – do we have souls? What is a soul exactly anyway? I love how Deepak Chopra describes “soul” in a recent article he wrote for Care2.com:
“The soul is best understood not as a wispy ghost but as your true self, present in you at this moment. You don’t see it, although when you feel the impulse of love, you have contacted it. There can be no doubt that you have a self, therefore to step onto a new level, that of your true self, is not actually so formidable a task.”
So, yes, I do believe dogs have souls. Otherwise I guess I wouldn’t have written a book of stories to read to them called Beef Casserole for the Dog’s Soul LOL.
Here’s what a few other random people have to say on the question ‘do dogs have souls?’:
“Dogs definitely have souls, no two ways about it. I don’t care what any church or religious group says, I know for a fact that dogs have souls. Here’s the proof for my point; any creature capable of overcoming its built-in programming (instincts) and acting against its own survival in an act of heroic self-sacrifice, must therefore possess a soul. If it were truly “just an animal” it could not, and would not be able to, defeat its in-born programmed “hard-wired” instincts, and thus would always fight to save itself instead of bravely sacrificing its life to save other animals and humans.
“There are countless examples of dogs who were not trained as rescue animals, yet who gladly gave up their own lives to save others, and that capacity for self-sacrifice is absolute proof of the presence of a soul.” /Gary, Ontario, Canada
“The dogs spirit is connected to god it is like an angel. A part of God’s soul is inside of the dog. When it dies it returns to who created it for further instruction. God is love, love is inside the pet, love never dies it is immortal and it remembers all love given and received.” /Jasmine, New Jersey, USA
“There is a wonderful book called “The Souls of Animals” by Gary Kowalski that is very enlightening.” /Fran, Illinois, USA
“Well have no idea really but hope they have… my dog was my best friend. I miss her…;-( /Ms D, UK
Dogs DO have souls. /Haley, Georgia, USA
Do you think dogs have souls?
Alfie
August 11, 2009
Alfie and Jean, Scotland. Alfie is a sweetheart who likes to keep an eye on what’s happening all around him. He’s especially on the look-out for any strange dogs suddenly appearing.
What about you? Send me pics of your dog listening to his or her favorite Beef Casserole for the Dog’s Soul story: petalove@bibliopet.com
Walk
August 8, 2009
There are so many great things to say about walking with your dog. But today I’ve been thinking about how amazing it is that as dog walkers we have instant membership to an elitist club of egalitarian members.
It’s a bona fide, gigantic, secret subculture that genuinely crosses all borders and cultures. What I mean is there is a unique camaderie; a sense of natural connectedness among dog walkers that without any effort on our part is just magically there.
Why is that? Is it the dogs who make that happen? Sure, two dogs can meet and become instant best buddies, which is always fun for their people. And I think I get as much pleasure as my dog Bubba when a strange dog smiles and play bows at him. I love that!
[Why don’t people have a similar signal?! ----→ “Hey I just saw you from back there, I like your tail set and lope, yup, I like you, don’t know exactly why, but I do, do you like me? Let’s play, see what happens, you know - get to know each other better with a bit of a frolic about. Maybe this is a momentary thing, might not ever see each other again, who knows, who cares, let’s just be in this happy moment right now!”]
Wouldn’t that be so awesome?
But it does actually sort of happen when dog walkers meet, at various levels of friendliness. You know how it is – you see someone coming towards you with their dog – instantly they are your kin and of your tribe. Just like any other kind of tribe members, maybe you don’t like one another or each other’s dog or maybe one of you is in a hurry.
But one of the superb and for many people, completely unexpected, joys of having a dog is meeting other dog people on walks.
We are a fantastic breed! We are extremely open and tolerant – it doesn’t matter what you’re wearing, where you live, what car you might drive or what gadgets you own. Hey, you’re walking your dog, or even your friend’s dog, so we’re members of the same tribe.
When you stop to think about it, this is truly an amazing thing. Imagine if all members of the United Nations had a dog and took their dog along to meetings or better still all took off for a walk together? Instant connectedness, a sense of kinship and, yes, OK, probably far too much discussion about the dogs and laughing about their antics with each other.
But look, where does this sense of dog people community come from? Why do people who would normally never start a conversation with each other suddenly find themselves enjoying a good old chat in the street, in the park, anywhere?
Who knows. It’s just there. I’m walking my dog down the street and I wave and smile at the stranger walking their dog down the other side. They wave and smile back. Dog people almost always acknowledge one another and isn’t that a beautiful thing? I don’t recall ever seeing dog-less strangers wave and smile at each other – well, that would be just weird wouldn’t it?
But it’s not weird with dog people. And on the other paw, it’s not weird to ignore each other either. No offence is taken. You can even do this with dog walkers you see every day and that’s OK. We’ll have more time to chat tomorrow or some other time. Or not.
I’m remembering when Bubba was a puppy he would get so frustrated with me stopping and talking to people that he would jump up, grab my scarf end and yank on it. [Hello? Is that Dog Behaviour Inc? Great. Listen. My dog jumps up all frustrated and tries to strangle me with my scarf when I spend more than 5 minutes talking to people on walks… Uh-huh, uh-huh… What do you mean stop talking for so long until he’s older? Oh, em OK then…]
I heard the lovely Julian Clary on the radio the other day talking about walking his dog at some park in London and I thought, yeah, see, he may be a celebrity and all but I bet he spends ages talking to other dog walkers. It’s like dog walkers have a flat hierarchy. Forget all those male/female/celebrity/rich/poor/young/old ‘gaps’ as extraordinary Artist and Computer Scientist Jonathan Harris calls these dividers of society.
[Just as an aside, check out Jonathan Harris' mind-bending talk about the emotional world of the web. He talks about how people are similar but we have trouble seeing that sometimes. He says as he looks around the world he sees a lot of gaps and that we sometimes tend to define ourselves by our gaps: gender, sexuality, wealth, education gaps, religious gaps and so on (which is not a bad thing). At the same time we have a lot in common including a need to express ourselves.]
I bet Jonathan Harris has a dog! You meet really interesting people walking your dog. We’ve gone from busloads of Asian tourists rushing over to take Bubba’s photo – there are photo albums all over China, Japan and Korea in which he is featured – through to people of every other ethnicity, vocation and personality.
I’ve had remarkably intense one-off meetings with people where they share something traumatic that’s going on in their lives that day. I’ve had regular every day play date walks for years on end that are light and fun. I’ve made wonderful friends in other dog walkers.
My life has been enriched by talking to all kinds of people while walking my dog and I cannot think of any other avenue that allows the intimacy and friendliness across all cultures and peoples that going out with your dog (or your friend’s dog!) does. I mean really, there is nothing. Is there?
Cat people are bonded in the same way, we can talk cats all day long but unless people are out with their cat, at the vet or somewhere, you don’t know until you’ve already gotten to know them the usual way.
Another thing I’ve noticed is that I get people without dogs coming up to us a lot. These are the people who are needing a dog-fix. It’s like we are providing a community service. I love that and so does Bubba. He especially likes men needing a dog-fix ‘cos he gets huge man-bear-hugs and solid pat-action.
And then there are the real characters. Yesterday we met a totally amazing guy; all tattooed and smoking a cigarette, roughly-lined face, tough-looking – maybe he had been a boxer? about 65 or so walking his -– 5 month old Lhasa Apso! A darling wee furpuff he’d named after a, em, soccer star.
There’s also a lovely thing that happens when you live somewhere for any amount of time. You get to know other dog walkers really well. And I do mean really, strangely, well. I have an elderly lady in my street who walks her Boxer and if we meet her without her dog she makes a right old fuss of Bubba who adores her. She is lovely and like a ray of sunshine. But I haven’t seen her for a week now so that I am thinking of going to her house to make sure she’s OK.
And isn’t that a nice by-product of being a dog walker? That other dog walkers might notice you’re not around and care to wonder why? Who knew you were getting instant membership to a caring club when you got that puppy/rescue dog?
As I said at the top, there is a lot to say about dog walking but apart from the obvious joys of simply being in the fresh air with your canine buddy and everything that goes with that there is this overlooked, I guess maybe even secret, aspect of this beautiful kinship with strangers.
Can I just say in closing that I am talking specifically dog walking here – definitely not dog showing! LOL If you take your dog to a Dog Show you can expect dog people to behave in the exact opposite way! No, really I am joking. I shouldn’t say that. More about the completely separate subculture of dog showing, or at least my experience of it, another time!
Arthur & Lance
August 7, 2009
Not one but TWO gorgeous Newfies! Arthur and Lance with their people Donna and Carl. (If you look real close you can see Carl is indeed holding a copy of Beef Casserole for the Dog’s Soul.) I think Arthur really likes the City Dog story since it’s about a handsome Newfoundland like him.
What about you? Send us pics of your dog listening to a Beef Casserole for the Dog’s Soul story: petalove@bibliopet.com
