Basic self-care test: is your dog living better than you?
Long ago—nearly half my lifetime ago!—I had two cats. I was working as an administrative assistant at the time, in Minneapolis, and every other week or so, I would take time over lunch to go to the high-end pet store around the corner from my office. I’d purchase expensive organic cat food, and then head back up the street for my own lunch. And where did I often go for lunch? McDonald’s.
Huh???
I remember noticing this at the time and laughing at myself: why was I feeding my cats better than I fed myself? Why was their health more important than my own? And now that I have dogs, I am noticing some of the same patterns, even if the choices I make are slightly different. If I have that third glass of wine and feel less-than-stellar the next morning, I notice that my dogs feel just fine and are enjoying the morning walk. If I overeat, or overwork, or let myself get caught up in the daily stress of being a human, I’ll come home and see that my dogs had been napping contentedly all day.
To some degree, of course, this is inevitable: it’s the humans in my house who have to earn the money, pay the bills, do the laundry (I haven’t figured out how to train the dogs on that one, alas), and so on. But I have a lot of control over my life…a lot more than I sometimes assume. Sometimes that third glass of wine was a good choice, and worth the morning-after feeling. But other times I need to be conscious of my need for a good night’s sleep, something that my dogs enjoy every night of the year.
This self-care test is simple, and it suggests immediate solutions. If your dog is living better than you, there are steps you can take today to improve your daily routines. (And if you don’t have a dog, don’t you think you should get one?)
Hoku and Stella, living their happy lives.
