(This is NOT “actually” Layla and our house guest, Daisy, but a pretty darn good representation of them)
Every year, Layla the Wonderdog gets a visitor for the month of March, named Daisy. My parents vacation in March to Florida and leave their dog with us. In comes her special food bowls, bucket o food with feeding instructions (that I mostly follow), gigantic fluffy bed, and one or two toys that remind her of home.
While they vacation and play on the sunny west coast of Florida, Daisy gets to vacation with us.
When she arrives, Layla the Wonderdog is filled with excitement and can’t stop circling Daisy in what I am sure is in dog language loosely translated to “OH MY GOSH I’M SO GLAD YOU ARE HERE LET’S PLAY PLAY PLAY NOW!!!” And Daisy promptly responds with a, now I’m not “totally” sure this is it but thinking it is “GET AWAY FROM ME YOU ANNOYING YOUNGER DOG!” After a few hours, they settle into a routine, mostly existing of Layla the Wonderdog wanting to play with Daisy and Daisy tolerating her.
This year, we get a bonus week! Since my parents are vacationing with friends in Mexico before their regularly scheduled mid winter escape the tundra trip to Florida, we get Daisy for a week in January.
As dogs age, I’ve learned stairs are not their best friends in general. One more year has passed in her far too short life. As night time fell, and we began our evening retreat to bed…..Daisy took one look at our stairs, took 2 steps up and stood frozen. I pushed. I pulled. I coaxed. Nothing. Slowly….slowly…she backed down the stairs and for the first time, insisted on sleeping downstairs. Down came her fluffy GIGANTIC bed, and we laid it by the stairs thinking she could at least hear us and know we weren’t far away.
Layla the Wonderdog would not have it. She paced. She whimpered. She paced some more. And for the first time in her 3 1/2 years with us….Layla the Wonderdog didn’t sleep on our bed. Why? Well because her beloved Daisy, her houseguest, was all alone in our house. What sort of host would she be if she allowed her to sleep alone? So she ran down our steps, plopped herself on the couch next to Daisy….and there she slept. All. Night. Long. The next night? Same thing…..Tonight…..guessing it’ll be the same.
She’s a dog. I like to think BRILLIANT, but a dog nonetheless. Still…she had this acute sense Daisy needed her more than she needed to keep her routine of sleeping on our bed.
So….why can’t more humans behave like our dog does? She sees a new person, she instantly wants to be his/her friend. When someone in our house has had a bad day, she stops everything she is doing to comfort him/her. When she has a really cool toy, she wants to share it with others to play with her. When she’s tired, she sleeps. When she’s hungry, she eats. She runs! She plays! She happily greets guests with exuberant hugs and kisses (YES! Must to the chagrin of many of our house guests at times) letting each person know how much she clearly loves them. And the funny thing is….the more I talk to others with dogs, I learn her behavior is COMMON! I love that dogs are nonjudgemental, all loving, and forgiving even in my crabbiest of days.
“Dogs are our link to paradise. They don’t know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring, it was paradise.” Milan Kundera.
Peace…….
(for more inspiration…..Matthew 25:35-40 …….with some humility I admit Layla the Wonderdog lives this scripture passage better than I do.)
peaceinthejourney 