Life with Dogs: Constant Invitations to be a Better Person

It was 35 degrees yesterday in the late afternoon and I was so happy that it was warm enough to do some outside obedience training — a reminder about adaptability and perspective.

Having an UP dog when training/playing/competing is not the same thing as having a dog who is just plain wild and crazy. My girls are easy to live with, and have on/off buttons (so to speak).

First up was Sparkle — she was SO happy to be training!

Down Signal — cookie — Sit Signal — go chase the stuffed moose.

We played Go Out Games, which is the same — and different — as saying I trained Go Outs.

It is the same because yes, I was training Go Outs.

But it is different because to say we reflects my collaborative approach to dog training, and playing games speaks of my commitment to attitude and fun.

And then it was Claire’s turn and the volume on the bouncing and attitude somehow got even higher, which did not seem possible; Sparkle is a hard act to follow.

Claire is a novice dog and at almost three years old, has spent literally years on her heeling skills, which are such an important foundation for all of obedience showing.

It is easy to lose attitude when training heeling, which is why it must be playing at heeling. If the difference doesn’t resonate, that is an invitation to change your mental channel about dog training.

Daisy — happy to tear up the agility course, and content to hang out quietly and happily in the house.

But what I was really planning to share this morning is something related to my ongoing series.

When my dog — an experienced one or a novice one — doesn’t meet my expectation for a behavior, there are really just two choices: I can blame the dog or I can take responsibility.

If I blame the dog, the correction lands on the dog.

If I take responsibility, I change something.

Training dogs reminds me on a daily basis to pay attention to my own role in relationships, the challenges associated with communicating clear expectations, and the value of assuming good intentions.

How would you be different if Blame was not part of your Game? If you understood unmet expectations as simply a lack of understanding — or that your expectations are not actually realistic?

What would change in relationships — with humans and dogs — if differences or unmet expectations simply made us curious — and not defensive or angry?

Huh. Interesting stuff.

Dorm Life

People are always sorry when they ask about the kitchen — but I always feel better after being given the chance to complain about it!

Yesterday — after a friend made the mistake of asking and I spent five minutes complaining — she observed that it is like we are living in a dorm room. So true!

We make food choices based on how few dishes we can use, whether said food can be microwaved, we eat a lot of cereal, and dishes are washed in the bathroom sink. All we need is a loud neighbor on one side and the smell of weed coming under our door and it would feel just like a college dorm!

Everything is harder without a kitchen. In fact, I would estimate that no kitchen uses between 30 - 35 Little Soldiers every single day.

And it is not just the work of life with no kitchen, but also the work of dealing with all the moving parts of getting things reconstructed. I am exhausted by it — and truthfully, I suspect that is part of their strategy.

But I persist.

I sent this email this morning:

Good Morning [Insurance Person with copies to various other insurance persons plus the Repair Person Company]:

I have a question I hope you can answer related to the below [email string that included negotiation between various insurance companies about who is ultimately paying this claim].

I spoke with the Appliance Specialists at Home Depot about the dishwasher fiasco; the dishwasher that is Ground Zero for the destruction of 1/3 of our home was purchased there. I explained the situation, which is that one these two things caused damage to our home:

1. Faulty dishwasher (i.e., water supply line malfunctioned); or,

2. Repair Person sent by GE did not tighten the dishwasher water supply line.

There are no other options, unless someone is prepared to assert that some random stranger snuck into our home and loosened the water supply line; I suppose someone could also offer that a dog or cat did it but that, of course, is equally ludicrous.

The opinion of the two appliance experts is that it was the Repair Person's failure to adequately tighten the water supply line because there is no history of that kind of problem in GE appliances. They, in fact, recommended a GE dishwasher to me, which is how the conversation started in the first place.

By the time the house is reconstructed we will have been without a kitchen for seven months. Seven Months.

Here is the question: Who is going to make it right in terms of the disruption and additional expenses we have incurred as a consequence of either a Repair Person's failure to do his work properly (a Repair Person sent to our home by GE) or -- less likely but possible -- the failure of a GE appliance under warranty to work properly?

Absent a magic wand, I am absolutely talking about additional compensation for the loss of three rooms in our house for an extended period of time. Which of the various companies involved is going to negotiate with us about that?

Thank you!

I believe that they should pay rent — after all, they are effectively utilizing 1/3 of our home for 7 - 8 months!

SO ANNOYING.

In happy news (sort of) — after months of negotiating to get the budget where it should be we were able to finally order the kitchen cabinets and countertop — they will be here in 6 - 8 weeks (hence the “sort of” part of the Happy News).

This is the design — but appliances and sink will all be stainless like the fridge, and that is not the actual floor.

The countertop will be quartz and in a fit of whimsy, I selected something called Stellar Snow — because it sparkles. Yep — my kitchen will match my dog.

I have a most agreeable and patient Dear Husband — or maybe he is just more exhausted by it all. When I say, “what do you think of this?” he just says, “I want you to be happy.” Hence the sparkly countertop.

Aren’t you glad you wondered about the kitchen?

Nasty Woman

Part 2. Still not a political post, even though I include an image of politicians. That said — isn’t everything political?

I am an equal opportunity crusader. I do not just want Life with Dogs to be fair — I want Life to be fair.

And it isn’t. I know that.

But does human imperfection mean we give up trying to make things better?

I have two challenging situations going on that have highlighted how difficult it is to be a woman in what is still a man’s world.

Do you doubt it is still a man’s world?

How many of your tribe have a seat at the table? Source: White House photo.

A woman who stands up and faces down a man with power does so at her own peril. And let me tell you this — it takes a great deal of something to do it knowing that you will likely be insulted and dismissed.

“Nasty”

“Hostile”

“Meltdown”

“Unhinged”

This is part of the explanation for why people stay silent in the face of unfortunate behavior — because being attacked for speaking up is so painful.

Note that I did not say the attack was for saying untrue things — rather, too often the attack is simply for speaking truth.

Anger is an appropriate human reaction to injustice — but a woman, no matter how thoughtfully, expresses it at considerable personal and professional risk.

There is an implicit social narrative that angry women are bad, nasty, crazy — even unseemly. But it is not just social pressure that supports that narrative. I believe we all have that internalized schema — do you, after all, know the answer to this question?

And so women who want things to be just are not only dealing with powerful huMANs who want to maintain the status quo but also a pervasive social narrative about what it means to be female — a narrative that we have understood from an early age.

And that narrative does not actually include speaking up or being angry.

It isn’t just the salmon who are swimming upstream — and right into the jaws of the waiting predators.

Source: https://www.alaskaphotographics.com/blog/2009/07/18/brown-bears-at-katmai-national-park-alaska/

And so we have a wee bit of a dilemma (understatement alert). Getting angry about injustice plays right into the hands of those in power because the social narrative is activated and suddenly the message is lost in the volley of arrows used to Shoot the Messenger.

Sparkle wonders why bitch is pejorative?

I suspect people in power NEED women to be angry. Not only do social pressures help manage angry women, but so do our own internal messages. Angry women can therefore be rendered ineffective and/or they can be silenced -- simply by the activation of implicit and internalized social narratives.

Clever strategy.

We must be smarter. All of us.

I believe in the goodness of humans, no matter the stripes. I know well the social narratives that suppress women also limit and hurt men.

And if anger is a trigger, it is also a shield. It covers up pain and vulnerability, and in doing so disinvites others into an understanding of our experience.

Maybe the secret to effectively highlighting injustice and/or asking for change is to stay present with the pain and not take cover in anger, no matter how justified it feels.

After all, we also have a powerful social narrative about how to respond to an unarmed, wounded person…