A Morning Blessing!

Have you ever sat in silence and just marveled at the incredible beauty of your dogs and your amazing connection?  I did this morning before jumping out of bed, I just watched for half an hour at my three loving dogs.  My heart couldn't help but smile looking at these babies. A great way to start my day.

I recently read a book,  Pack of Two: The Intricate Bond Between People and Dogs. Caroline Knapp 1959-2003. In her book she recounts her experiences of what it is like to study a dog you love, "you find beauty in every small detail, and so it is with Lucille my dog, I have been enchanted by the small asymmetrical whorls of white fur on either side of her chest, and by her tail which carries in a high confident curve, and by her eyes, which are watchful and intelligent, the color of chestnuts.  I am in love with the dog belly, where the fur is fine and soft and tan. I seem to spend a great deal of time just staring at the dog, struck by how mysterious and beautiful she is to me and how much my world has changed since she came along."

Caroline also talks about something I find very true.  When you fall in love with an animal in many ways you enter a new orbit, a universe that features not just new colors, but new rituals, new rules, a new way of experiencing attachment. A world that is qualitatively different from the world of people, a place that can transform us.  "The dance between dogs and their owners is about love". As Caroline so beautifully stated,   "It's about attachment that's mutual and unambiguous." 

With the help of my four leggeds, I have had to rethink many things i.e. ......how I often hurry through life and forget to smell the roses along the way. With a dog your walking definitively changes, they stop and sniff every other leaf, peeing at every possible calling card that the last dog left and most importantly they get us into the magic and wonder of nature as they excitedly scamper along a path or sidewalk.  Each time I walk with my dogs or see a dog walking with their owner, I smile and feel a bit of their happiness. And of course seeing a dog with their head out the window of a car just enjoying the breeze through its hair and nose, makes me appreciate life much more.  There isn't a day that goes by that I don't see a dog somewhere on my daily travels that doesn't totally bring me into a moment of joy.  Their unassuming manner and innocence together with their curiosity about life and their wonder and awe of the now, allows me to enjoy the wonder and awe of the now also.

This past week one of our television icons passed on and to my surprise Dick Clark was a huge dog lover.
Apparently he had more dogs in his office than any other person had in Burbank, Ca.

"Today we mourn the loss of a dog-lover extraordinaire: Dick Clark. He was 574, in dog years.

Clark was a big-time dog person. He designed his Malibu home so that it could accommodate all his dogs -- he sometimes had as many as five at a time. The showers were extra large so that he could wash the pups himself, he told LA's Pet Press in 2001. It was even his dog, he'd said years earlier, who'd picked out the place: His lab, Mort, got loose one afternoon on the beach, and Clark found him on a beautiful piece of beachfront property. He liked it as much as Mort did, so he called the owners and arranged the sale. There, he and his wife Kari celebrated each dog's birthday with plates of meatballs with candles in them. Kari was in charge of the party hats. He would take photos."

Photo credit: AP Photo/ LENNOX MCLENDON

In recent years the Clarks had a pug named Mrs. Jones, and Henry VIII, a 110-pound Weimaraner. There was also Lucille, a Dalmatian who was a gift from Gloria and Emilio Estefan -- they flew her to him via private jet. Bernardo was a Dachshund mix the Clarks found on the streets of San Bernadino. They dropped him off at the pound and then made a U-turn and picked him up. (He would become their fourth Dachshund.) Many of the Clarks' dogs were named for songs: Maybelline was a pup birthed by Mort's girlfriend, Molly; Eleanor Rigby was a stray who the Clarks took in.

In the office of Dick Clark Productions in Burbank, dogs roamed as they pleased. They took the elevators rather than the stairs; they trained human staffers to push the buttons for them. They also convinced all Clark's employees to feed them leftovers, leading Clark to affix "Don't Feed Me" signs to his charges when they made the rounds in the office.

"There are a few people that don't like dogs, so they don't pay any attention to them. But for the most part people pet them, feed them, bring them presents, and talk to them. It has a nice effect on a place that tends to have a lot of tension," he told The Pet Press' Lori Golden. "When the dogs enter, it breaks the ice. I'll say sorry, we're in a meeting, and they'll turn around and leave. But everybody sort of laughs and it loosens up the meeting." "They're pressure relievers," he continued. "You'll be on the phone at work dealing with something stressful and they'll just walk up and want a pat."

As his health began to decline in 2004, Clark told the Associated Press that he didn't think that he'd had a stroke; when he awoke partially numb one morning, it was a feeling he was familiar with: He thought a dog had slept on his side.

Dogs truly open our hearts and minds to a genuineness in life.  What really matters! And sometimes a new way of experiencing the world from their delightful and honest perspective. They ground us in ways that often humans can't because we can't just operate from our minds we must bring in our heart and senses in order to be in tuned with them.