Dapple

I love my dog.  His name is Dapple. He is by my side nearly all the time.

His priority list is pretty short. Eat, play, learn and do whatever I ask him to do. He brings me joy……most of the time.

The other day I got very angry with him. He ran off. Again. Two days in a row. He’s just having fun, but the cars near me move pretty quickly, so I worry about him. Somehow, that turns into anger. He doesn’t understand why. “I was just playing!”

Hmmm….How often do we do that to people we care about? They do something that angers us, legitimately or not. We’re angry and they either don’t know it, or don’t understand why we’re angry….or how to fix it! Is that fair?

I’m not real good at this, but I’m working on it. These are people (and dogs) that I care about. I need to calmly and rationally explain how I’m feeling and why. It’s only fair to them. Interestingly, quite often I find out that there really isn’t a reason for me to be angry, and I learn something about myself…I apologize too.

Sometimes it’s hard, but we need to communicate. It’s the only way to mend or even prevent rifts.

Talk it through.

You can do this.