MIND TREATS

Yesterday was Jet’s birthday. For newcomers to my blog, I’m a dog and Jet is my foster mom who rescued me from a kill shelter.  (There’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one.) Before getting locked up in the pound, I had a life with a family and then I lived on the street. The street is a hard teacher but a great source of lessons, which I now share with humans. As the Dog Whisperer often says, it’s usually the human, not the dog that needs the training. 

It seems that humans spend half their life rushing time in order to celebrate their birthday and the other half of their life regretting that birthdays arrive so soon every year. Say what you will, but dogs have a much more sensible view of birthdays.

First, why dwell on the day when you were born when no one really remembers it anyway?  Second, dog or human, we were just wrinkly blobs the day we were born. Why make such a fuss about that? Third, celebrating every moment in every day seems a lot more fun than just celebrating one day a year. Finally, who cares about what happens to you or what you look like when you get old?  From a dog’s perspective, it makes more sense to wake up every morning happy to be alive than worrying about how you look while you’re alive?

I heard about a missionary named Everett who worked with an Amazon people called Piraha. The Piraha language has no words for past or future. – Pretty much like a dog. And, like us [dogs], the Piraha don’t bother dwelling on the past or worrying about the future so there is no need to have words to describe them nor any anxiety about how to hold on to them. Plus, we both find a profound joy in the present that humans seem to notice, even envy, and yet are regrettably and remarkably terrible at emulating.

This leads me to my lesson of the week… Forget counting or fussing about the days before or after your birthday. Focus on each moment of every day and you will embrace them more enthusiastically, share them more abundantly and remember them with the kind of clarity that you can serve up like a mind treat when you’re gray. 

QUESTION FROM A FAN

Parker:

I have a boy master who gets badges for his good deeds.  He puts the badges on the shoulder of the second skin he wears on special days.  I prefer food so my humans give me treats when I do good deeds.  The bad news is that the treats give me a tummy ache. In fact, a lot of things I eat make my tummy mad. I love to eat. Can you help?  Your fan, Gustus

 

Dear Gustus:

Remember, I'm a dog, not a doctor but it sounds like you have food allergies that upset your stomach. Talk to your humans about this so they can discuss the problem with your vet. If so, you can eat dog food for sensitive stomachs (made by several companies) and Purina makes a wonderful treat called Gentle Snackers. (See image.) They are hypoallergenic canine treats and easy on the tummy.  – Let me know how it turns out.

Your Pal, 

Parker

                          THE NEW "ONE NIGHT STAND"

Hi, I'm Parker, a foster dog that lives with Jet, who is a fierce advocate for creature care.  She is of the opinion that all her foster dogs pitch in around the office. As a lover of words and a bit of an intellectual, I chose to write her blog: Greater Than Us (GTU) which is Jet's initiative to "unite business America with creature causes".

As a professional columnist and blogger, I follow Jet's favorite adage: teach, not tell; serve, not sell.  - Which leads me to my blog entry and the lesson I hope to convey this week.

Humans have a peculiar way of defining 'events' in their life.  Case in point: One Night Stand.  It means an intimate [human] encounter limited to one evening.  Some inventive dog rescuers in Texas decided to give the term a whole new meaning.  In the Dallas area, Tawana Couch rescues dogs from kill zone shelters that are about to euthanize my four-legged friends. Each dog then stays in the home of a volunteer for "one night" where the rescued canines enjoy food, attention, exercise and sometimes a bath.  The next morning the dogs are picked up, placed in a crate and flown to non-kill shelters for adoption. So now "one night stand" is a loving [dog] encounter for one evening. 

I included photos of one of the program volunteers, Pam Duffy and her one night stand rescues who she named Bella and Winston.  You have to admit there is a slight resemblance between Winston and Mr. Churchill.

Volunteer Duffy with one night stand: "Bella".

I'm just a foster dog - albeit a very smart one, but even I can see that although some humans are screw ups who abandon perfectly good animals like me there are also those with the will to save us.  This brings me to my lesson: humans have an incredible capacity to transform bad into good when they apply themselves to do so. This includes changing an empty, fleeting one night tryst into a courageous effort to airlift dogs every month to forever homes elsewhere.  - A simple transformation ignited by a love for animals, a little entrepreneurial ingenuity with some wordsmith-ing of an old American idiom.  What are you transforming in your life that yields as much good? 

               

                            Question from a Fan 

Dear Parker: My humans have kids who they reward with small, green paper when they take out the trash and do the

    dishes.  They reward me with a pat on the head.  Could you           give my parents a few ideas about rewards I could enjoy more?       The green paper is only good for shredding.  Bozer

    Bozer, thanks for writing.  To Bozer's parents, I hope you  

    will consider the following as alternative rewards for your 

    canine kid: a long walk, low calorie treats (not human 

    food) or simply a few minutes of fetch every day.

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   REQUEST TO:  jet@platinumrainmakers.com.  Your 
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