Darwin and I were doing therapy work today at Gateway. Tomorrow we’re back at the Learning Center in Escondido. We made a few people happy today, so I guess it was a good day…
One older gentleman in particular kept wanting to see Darwin doing his “tricks” — shaking hands, etc. But I don’t really teach Darwin many tricks – my idea of therapy is more that he is there with people and available to and responsive to them, not that he does a lot of tricks to entertain them. He is well-behaved and is under control, but not “controlled” by me. I guess this piece sort of explains some of what I feel….
Author Mom with Dogs » Blog Archive » Control vs Self-Control
You’d like what Mother Teresa said to a reporter once! She was asked, how can we solve the problem of world hunger? Her reply, without missing a beat was, “Feed one hungry person.” That was her wisdom, the secret energy of toiling in the mess with personal commitment, practical personal acts, and the influence of personal example.
Back then to the world in which we live, where the first thing that so many children say as they walk up to me with one of my dogs is, “Can you make that dog sit?!” Spend a moment on what that sentence carries in it, what it implies about the human stance–from very early on… I can at that moment make a difference, not only by the REQUEST of a sit (as someone said in another discussion), as opposed to a demand, but I can also teach the child a different way of being with a dog.
There are many, many moments in our days when we can do the equivalent of feeding one hungry person to address the shame of inflicting ‘power over’ on the dogs who inhabit our lives–at home, in town, in class, at the ring…. Methinks that we HAVE TO do it. That’s why I’m hoping we who talk about this with one another will also speak up and out–not with a lot of brassy noise-making, but with a steady personal voice, and the personal acts that give that voice credibility and set an example in the world around us.
Now, if healthy control is properly a *balance* concept, then our example is needed to articulate not only when control turns to shameful power over, but also when it slides to shameful extremes represented by a lack of healthy control–that is, by neglect, indifference, discarding of dogs… and also insane indulgence that overburdens dogs with excessive emotion, goodies, and stimulation.
Railing at people isn’t going to do it. But, we can make a difference with the courage to look at ourselves and to speak by example, to not step away from looking into the eyes of those whom we find oppressed, but also looking into the eyes of those who wield the power that oppresses them. Feeding that one hungry person is the beginning. Don’t do it under a bushel, is what I’d add.
For me, I am realizing that the bigger challenge is often not that of speaking the truth or living it with the dog right in front of me, but to live and speak the truth without strangling the livin’ shit out of the human in front of me who is ‘controlling’ a dog and to whom I want to get the message. And that brings me back to the incredible difficulty of the power struggle within–and to the recognition that if I want to influence the person who is heaping power over a dog, I cannot do it by heaping my power over the person. Believe it, that’s a challenge. I keep trying to learn from Mother Teresa how to do that… stand in the truth and share it. She didn’t say, “… to solve the problem of world hunger, you slug the sob who hogged the rice bag…”
I have a lot of days where I feel like slugging the person hogging the rice bag, myself….
And yes, Darwin did “shake hands”, and we were nice about it, but I hope most of the group was able to simply enjoy Darwin for who he is, as I do.
No Responses