Lessons From My Dog

My dear old dog is coming to the end of her beautiful life. She is 14 years old, a rescued street dog who has graced our home for more than a decade.

Indoor sunshine, chasing the slivers of sunrays around the living room.

A few months ago, she had an operation to remove a large growth from her face. The vet warned us that it was a big operation for her, given her age and her heart condition. The vet was right. While the operation did indeed sort out the issue of the growth, over the last few weeks she seems to have aged considerably.

She still enjoys her twice-daily walks. Now, however, instead of hour-long beach runs, she tootles across the road for a wee by her favourite pee-tree, then it's a slow saunter down the block to her old friend Derek's house to drink from the bowl of fresh water he always leaves out for passing animals. And then we come home and she falls fast asleep in the hall, too exhausted to walk to her bed.

Pippa feeling not too chuffed with her cone on after the operation.

I look at her and wonder how much more time we will share. How many more walks. How many more poo bags. How many more cuddles. Her food is always the first thing I write on my shopping list. My social life is designed around her walks and dinner times.  She gets new dog coats and blankets every winter, while I look at jumpers on Vinted!

That makes me wonder: why do I find it so much easier to take care of someone I love than to take care of myself? Look at my dog’s life: if Pippa is too tired to get up to eat her dinner,

I bring it to her; if she’s cold, I fetch her a blanket; if her old joints are feeling their age, I walk at a snail’s pace beside her (apart from when we’re crossing the road and I have to make sure she gets across safely); if she wakes me up in the middle of the night because she needs a tinkle, I get out of my warm bed without a grumble; if her farts stink out my bedroom, I just say, ‘Ah, Pippa’s farting…sweet!’  

Can we go to the beach?

I never say to her, ‘Come on, Pippa, you were always so fit, why the short walks these days?’ I never look at her greying muzzle and flabby tum and think she needs to take a bit more pride in her appearance. I don’t chide her for letting herself go. And I don’t withdraw my love because she is becoming less convenient and more needy.

What would happen if I extended to myself some of the ordinary kindness and care that I already give so instinctively to Pippa? I’m aging too. No longer as fit or strong or slim as I used to be. My capacity and energy levels have decreased. I probably don’t smell as fresh as I once did! Sometimes I’m ok with all that stuff but often I’m comparing, evaluating, judging what is against what was….and not scoring very well at all! My own harshest critic, as we would say.

Yet I can allow Pippa to just be as she is without having to change her. I don’t judge her or compare her to other younger dogs…I’m not trying to fix her or set goals for her personal development. I accept her just as she is. If I put my ecology hat on, I can see that the living system that is Pippa is changing. She’s ageing. And, though I hate to form the word, she’s dying. Her needs are changing and I respond to those changing needs.

In all this process, there’s a lesson for me. Perhaps self-compassion is partly learning to live in relationship with ourselves, rather than continually trying to manage or fix ourselves. Pippa has never once had to earn her place in my life. Have I?