“The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image..” Thomas Merton, No Man Is An Island.
My walks with Zinnia have a spiritual dimension to them and I try to read from Merton or Palmer or Nouwen or someone else before we head out. I like this Merton quote about love, and I applied it to my dogs and to dog training.
I want my dogs to be as perfectly themselves as possible, I don’t seek to squeeze them into my image of what they should be, I want them to be what they should be, given the harsh reality of dog’s and their lives.
We tend to think a dog is “good” if it acts like us, and a dog is “bad” if they act like a dog. This is a tough gap to bridge in my dog training. That means I have to get them to live in a human’s world.
On our walks, Zinnia can live in a dog’s world, she is at peace and content, and so am I. We take these walks very much together and because we both get to much from them, each one draws us closer. She is sleeping at my feet now as I write this, content herself and helping me to be content.
Before we learned of a friend in deep trouble, I was out walking Zinnia in the woods. We encountered two sets of dogs, two little rescues and one huge aging Bulldog.
Zinnia challenges dogs, barks loudly, then settles down when she gets to know them a bit. I started calming work, getting her to sit and lie down when they get close.
This is essential to passing the therapy dog tests.
It went well today, she did lie down and quieted down. Got to expand on that.
We walk to the end of our trail to the lake every day, and Zinnia likes to skate on the ice. I let her go about 20 feet and then call her back, in a few weeks the ice will start melting, I don’t want her getting too adventurous out there yet.
She loves these walks, I only leash her up when I see another dog, otherwise, she sniffs along the trails and keeps a close eye on me, and Maria, if she’s along.
I love it most when my dogs can be dogs, and I can be a human, each of us doing our thing, but doing it together. To me, those are the special moments that cause us to bond in a spiritual as well as practical way.
Our walks are like that, they deepen us and calm us. Today, I am especially grateful for Zinnia.
Jon, I have given much thought to this situation and want to give you another way to have handled this. As a retired Hospice nurse I saw this situation differently. Clearly this woman needed help but in my mind she could have received help from Hospice care. She wanted to stay at home to be close to her dog in the comfort of her home. Anyone can make a referral to Hospice, had you called a Hospice they would have sent a nurse to her home to assess her needs, get doctors orders to make her comfortable, set up a home health aide to care that would attend to her bodily needs and come to here home on a regular basis. She could have stayed home in comfort and could have been with dear dog until the end. Now she is in an ICU away from everything she loves. Hospice care is a Medicare benefit, now she will charged large sums of money she will not be able to pay.
Thanks Tess, I’m afraid this isn’t something I wish to discuss on Facebook. As a hospice volunteer, I was and am well aware of hospice as an option and have spoken to her and hospice already… but not if the patient doesn’t want it…and she doesn’t..It isn’t helpful to diagnose something from a distance… As I’m sure you know well, hospice is a very charged issue for many people. Also, I am not her primary caretaker or family member.. I am not in charge of her health care, nor has she asked me to make decisions about it..yesterday was an emergency and there was absolutely no time to organize hospice, even if she wished it. I gather from the medical people that getting her to the hospital may have saved her life..but this is not the place for this conversation. I have spoken to the nurses and hospital social worker and she and her doctors will be discussing the next step..I have no right to presume what she wants to do or should do. She was not coherent yesterday and able to have a discussion about this..she and/or her family will take it from here..Beyond that, I don’t even know what the full prognosis or diagnosis is..and it’s not my business. If she or her family chooses hospice, there is plenty of time for her to sign up..