As some of you know, the hubby and I rescued a soon to be 10 year old German Shorthaired Pointer that we named Blue back in September. One of the reasons we chose Blue was that he was described as being super sweet, really mellow, not food driven, and just a love bug. Now while the super sweet and love bug parts of that description are spot on, the rest couldn’t be further from the truth. Especially the ‘mellow’ one. If you’ve never met a GSP before let me just describe them by saying they’re WIDE OPEN. Meaning constantly on the go. Rarely stopping. Always looking for the next thing to do and fairly anxious. In short, they can be exhausting. Cute, but exhausting.
Blue has proved himself to be the poster boy for GSPs more closely resembling a 2 year old than a 10 year old. Recently, Blue has eaten at least part of: a pair of mittens, a pair of gloves, a leash, a nylon muzzle, a sneaker, several plants, two yoga mats, a drink coaster, a shawl off the sofa, and a nylon travel crate. At least those are the things I know about. The good thing is that he apparently has an iron stomach and none of these things bother him and in fact five to seven days after ingesting them he eats a ton of grass and pukes everything up. Yesterday was one of those days. On my carpet. That I just had professionally cleaned.
So I had a meltdown. As I was scrubbing six piles of dog puke from various places around my house. I was absolutely distraught over how out of control I was feeling with and about this dog. But as I was crawling around on the floor I remembered what my AC teacher said once about her own dog and his jumping up on people. She had said that she was embarrassed by it yes, but also that she felt not good enough because here she was an Animal Communicator and she couldn’t keep her dog from jumping up on people and barking. And there it was.
Most of my discomfort around Blue’s behavior has been because I can’t seem to fix it or stop it and have felt that that reflected on me and maybe how good…or in this case bad…I was at what I do. Yesterday in the midst of my meltdown I reached out to a colleague and had her read Blue for me (I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to do it…) and one of the things she said was that Blue really just wanted to be the dog he was and that he was having trouble completely changing what he knew and becoming the dog I needed him to be.
When I do the Soul Level Animal readings I do, I always ask the animal what lesson they’re teaching their human. I think his lesson is about me letting go and not trying to make someone into something they’re not just to please me. Today Blue and I made a pact. I’ll give him plenty of time during his day to be the dog he needs to be and he’ll respect the boundaries I have to set for me. Other than that, we’re going to try let eachother be what we need to be.
Stay tuned…
Live and learn in Munay.