Every day our pets make us laugh, feel unconditional love, get us active, help us develop empathy, increase our social connections . . . and make us feel happy.
I can’t imagine life without my dog. He shows me unconditional love no matter how grumpy I am. He never tells me what I should be doing or judges me. He never gets mad at me. He just loves me.
Dogs are great for companionship.
My mother has had dogs most of her life and has always been a dog lover. She’s 81 years old now and a widow and I worried she might be lonely. When I asked her about it she said, “I’m never lonely, I have Coco who is great company. I can’t imagine my life without a dog. Coco greets me with such love every time I come home and she’s always with me around the house.” And I have to say, Coco’s a comfort to me too because I know my mom loves her independence and Coco is very protective, no one is coming in my mom’s house unless Coco say’s it’s ok.
Dogs can make you laugh.
My son Matt’s dog, Tyson (pictured above), was such a character. I’d like to share one of our Tyson stories. He brought lot’s of laughter and joy into Matt’s life and our’s.
Matt was living in Ocean Beach in San diego with Tyson. Tyson went everywhere with Matt and mostly walked around town off leash – I know, I know. This story has a moral – don’t walk your dog off leash.
So they’re walking around the neighborhood, on a typical beautiful blue sky, bright sunshiny day. Tyson stops often to “read the newspaper” – aka – smell the neighborhood to see if any of his friends are around, and to see who’s cooking what and did they leave anything for him.
Matt checks back and sees Tyson in someone’s yard and he calls him to come out of the yard.
Tyson eyeballs him, then makes a dash for the front door which conveniently has a doggie door.
Yup, Tyson went into a stranger’s house. Matt said he was, “freaking out, calling Tyson to come out, knocking on the door but no one was home and Tyson was not responding.” After what seemed like forever, but was actually only minutes, Tyson casually strolled back out the doggie door. Guess he made a friend inside.
So if you live in Ocean Beach and have a doggie door on your front door, sorry about that and I hope you didn’t find any surprises when you got home, compliments of Tyson.
Want one more story, ok, ok, if you insist.
When Matt and Tyson were living in Georgetown, we went for a walk in Rock Creek Park.
It was a brisk fall day, leaves were gold and red and fallen all over the place.
As we’re walking along the creek, Tyson is running ahead and then back to check on us. At the creek bank there are lot’s of leaves and they continue on top of the water a few feet from the bank. We’re watching Tyson frolic around the water, running about and he tries to run on the leaves thinking they were solid ground. Suddenly the ground opened up under him and he dropped into the water. I wish I had my camera because the look on his face was priceless.
He was so clearly embarrassed and we couldn’t stop laughing, really doubled over, my stomach hurt, laughing.
Tyson gathered up all the dignity he possessed, walked out of the creek, shook himself off and wouldn’t look at any of us for about 10 minutes, after which he finally agreed to let us pet him and scratch his ears. Dogs can make you smile.
The endorphins (the brain’s feel good chemicals) were flowing that day .
I’d love to hear about one of your funny dog stories in the comment section below. Or any pet story that made you laugh.
As always, I’d appreciate it if you would help me get the word out about the Matt Kurtz Kindness Award of $250 (nominate someone who inspires you) and the Matt Kurtz Kindness Grant of $250 (submit an act of kindness you would do with $250).
