Do Your Friends Think You Spoil Your Dog?

In a good and healthy relationship you will have the following basic needs met:

• The need for emotional support.
• The need to be heard and to be responded to with respect and acceptance
• The need to have your own view, even if others have a different view.
• The need to have your feelings and experience acknowledged as real.
• The need to live free from criticism and judgment.
• The need to have your work and your interests respected.
• The need for encouragement even when your situation seems grim--in fact more so when it's grim.
• The need for freedom from from angry outburst and rage.
• The need to feel that you have value

I believe that if you observe how a person treats their animals--it will define how they treat other human beings. Will Rogers says that "If there are no dogs in heaven then I want to go where they went".

Dog companions respect all of the basic human needs in a relationship that I mentioned above. Yet, there are some pet owners that do not offer their dog the same respect. There are still some dog owners that treat their dogs like livestock. Fortunately, they are more the exception, than the rule.

I want my purpose in life to not be based on monetary gain---or even my own happiness. But let me be useful, honorable, compassionate, and to make a difference in people's lives. In other words...."let me be a dog".

In the current economy I may appear a failure to many---but in my heart I have made a lot of friends. I also truly and honestly can speak the language of the people I come in contact with at my store because I totally understand that life with a dog means the following:

a. You should spend more on your dog's food than you do on a week's groceries

b. Your dog not only should sleep with you, but you should hover on the edge of the bed so as not to disturb his/her slumber.

c. You should go out for a drive just so your dog can get to ride in the car and go "by-by"

d. There's more pictures of your dog in your photo album or facebook than your family members

e. Your furniture is arranged so your dog is comfortable

The dogs in our family growing up have always been family members. Our collies got pancakes every Sunday morning. My father and mother planned their life around the comfort of their dog(s). And that's okay...

When it was all said and done, as my father lay in his hospice bed those final days, his little dog was with him every moment.

Because that's what dogs do.......

Love unconditionally--something as a human being we all desperately need that kind of love

Until next time, Toodles!