The Dish by Darcy

Dear Darcie, A belated thanks for participating in the Capital Humane Society Tails and Trails at Haymarket Park. Enjoyed visiting your display! Janet

Dear Janet,

You’re welcome! I should have written about that already. Luke and Marty manned the booth. They had a ball. It was kind of funny, the tables got mixed up and SitStay wound up next to PetSmart. The guys laughed and said, “Hey, we do it right, nobody scares us.”

They guys told me that they’d never seen so many dogs in one place where not one dog created a scene. I said, “These dogs go walking every day with their people. Dogs who walk with their people are happy, healthy and well adjusted dogs.”

It was fun! Thank you!

Darcie

After two years of waking up to dirt and walking on sheets of plywood to keep the mud off of our shoes, the walkway and steps are finally going in this morning. I’m so excited.

The crew, to a man, is really easy to work with. It’s like they have telepathy or something. The crew chief doesn’t yell or swear or order the guys around. They smile and laugh easily with each other. Watching them work is pretty much like watching a clock tick. Everyone has their part to do and they just do it.

The forming of the steps was finished on Saturday while I was gone to town, I got home late, after dark, and didn’t go out to look. Sunday morning my brother in law, who was staying the weekend, said, “I have a question for you. Why is the bottom step so different than the rest?” I looked and sure enough, I realized that where I wanted the bottom step to start didn’t fit with the rest of the steps. So this morning, bright and early, right before the concrete truck was supposed to arrive, I asked the guys to change that bottom step.

Changing the bottom step was “no problem”. The crew chief told the guys that the concrete truck was on the way, “Don’t rush, make it right, we’ll get it done in time.”

The step is changed and it’s perfect. The truck was running a little late so changing the step didn’t change the pour schedule. Isn’t it incredible how things work out?

Whether we create a problem for ourselves or someone brings it to us, I believe that we have three choices at any given moment in this life. Change it, accept it, or separate ourself from the situation. No matter the obstacles, no matter what the problem is, everything works out just like it’s supposed to in the end. Concrete is pretty permanent so I didn’t want to accept that funky step even though it was me who made it funky. I expect to live here for a very long time, so separation from the problem wasn’t the answer. Changing it was the right thing to do and the easiest for this particular problem.

Bye for now, I’m going to go get a cup of coffee and watch the steps take shape. I love this stuff!

This morning a man came to tune my piano. As he touched each key, I heard the notes and it struck me that life with people and dog training are a lot like tuning a piano and when its finally tuned, like playing the music. No matter what kind of music we like, we all have an idea of what we think is good music. We know what we think is a good note, and what we think is a bad one. It’s all in how we listen and how we accept those sounds. Some of us like the old songs, the easy rhythms, the melodies and words we can understand. Some of us like that hard pounding base, notes that clash, words that get lost and misinterpreted, music that by any other name sounds like cats fighting in the alley with drumsticks tied to their tails. I guess you know which kind I like. We don’t all have to like the same music to live peacefully side by side. We do often gravitate to be with those who appreciate the same sounds we do.

I’ve always wanted to learn to play piano. When I was twelve, my sister had a few lessons with a neighbor and I fell in love with the sound. When the teacher was gone and my sister was done with her practice, I would sit down. I managed my way through some songs and my heart sang with joy with the work I’d done and the music that finally happened. We moved away from that place, leaving the piano behind. I told myself that someday I would have a piano of my own and really learn to play.

This summer a woman gave me this wonderful 100 year old upright piano. The man who agreed to refurbish it is back today to tune it. It’s going to take several tuning sessions, it hadn’t been played for a long, long time. Poor old thing. I wonder if it sat quietly dying in someone’s parlor or if it was stored away beyond where people lived as it lost it’s tune, drying up, alone and lonely where no one cared.

I know who made the piano and where it was made, I don’t know where it’s been for the past century, it would be fun to find out. It has a nice feeling to it, a quiet calming feel. It’s solid. It’s secure on it’s feet. It feels like I’ve known this piano before. Am I experiencing my own spirit responding to the instrument or is it truly the piano reaching out to me? I like to think both because that’s the way I am. Either way, we’re going to have a great time working out my piano playing dreams together.

I wonder if maybe we, as people, are like the tuning session was. When we hit a “bad” note with a person or with a dog, it shows as a cringe or a sadness in them, a defensive posture, a reluctance to keep working, a closed spirit. When they hit the “bad” note with us, we turn away. “Bad” notes are usually made with words and actions. When we hit the “bad” note, people stop talking, they turn their backs, they start locking doors. Dogs stop responding, start hiding, they turn away from us, they quit eating.

When we hit a “good” note, people talk to us, they think we’re wonderful, they listen to us, they hug us, they touch us. When we play the “good” note, our dogs agree to work with us, they come to us no matter where they were, they wag their tails with happiness and anticipation.

How do we know what the “bad” and “good” notes in dog training and communicating with other people are before we make them? How do we learn about dogs, how do they understand, how do they listen, what do they respond to, what language do they speak? How do we learn about women, men, and children. How do they best learn, understand and communicate? If we have to learn these things by thinking alone, I believe that we will fail.

We could learn through practice, deciding what we are going to do and work to that end. That will get us there eventually but it can take a long time and we’ll still make mistakes. We could learn by accident, stumbling along as we find out we’ve stumbled upon a good note or a bad one and trying not to make or to make that happen again. We could let things happen around us without really trying anything at all, which maybe isn’t so good if we’re trying to house break a puppy or build a loving relationship. I believe there is a better way.

Is a “good” note security, patience, understanding, mindful awareness, words that uplift and don’t tear down? Is a “bad” note criticism, a lack of understanding, a lack of care, intentional pain, revenge?

I do my best work when I am quiet. When my mind is quiet, words come to me that I would never have thought of while trying to think of them. When my thinking mind is quiet, I’m not trying to figure out why somebody said something and why that hurt me or how to get back at them and all the ways that I could. I’m not trying to think of a good come back or how I can get the next jab in first. My best ideas, my best times, and my best dog training come from a very quiet place.

Oliver crawled into bed with me this morning. He watched my face intently for a sign that he could come closer. He didn’t say anything, he didn’t whine or reach out to touch me. He waited quietly as dogs often do, waiting for me to invite him into my arms and next to my body, into my space. Without my saying a word or gesturing to him, Oliver knew that he was invited, he was accepted. He snuggled close and gave a great sigh of happiness and I smiled at him, laughed, and being human and not perfect yet, I had to say it out loud. “Oh, Oliver, I love you so much.”

I notice that when I am asleep when he comes to me that Oliver cuddles without asking my permission. That means, doesn’t it, that he only has to wonder if he will get permission if I am wide awake? What does that say about me? That sometimes I am thinking, not in my quiet place, and so not approachable without an engraved invitation? Maybe so. Should I stay asleep then so he feels accepted all the time? No, I think it’s easier than that. I must find that quiet place and live it, every second, all the time. Just like he does. Dogs rest and breath, play and eat in the moment without thinking and planning what they are going to do next. They don’t think about a good come back, or how to hurt someone, or revenge. They don’t “think” the way we do at all. Their minds are not full of what ifs and what nexts. We can learn so much from our dogs.

When we are quiet, when our thinking mind isn’t trying to destroy our world, us, or the people we love, we appreciate the tiniest seconds, we see things like we’ve never seen them before. We hear the birds sing, we feel the breeze on our skin, we smell the grass, we appreciate the spider’s web, and we can pick up a ball and throw it without worrying about whether or not it will come back to us. When we can do those things, when being quiet comes naturally to us, when we aren’t trying at all, that’s when we start enjoying great relationships with other people and with our dogs. And the ball will always come back in the mouth of a dog. Our spirits, the dogs’ and mine, will agree that we understand each other. We don’t have to communicate by thinking.

Give it a try. Quiet your mind before training. If you think a thought, move back and watch that thought. And think what your next thought will be. It won’t come. That’s quiet. Then believe that your dog will do something for you and he will.

I’m not perfect, I am so far from perfect, and I don’t expect I will be in this lifetime. Life happens to me and to you and to our dogs, I’m pretty sure it’s going to keep happening to all of us as long as we’re still in these bodies. Thank Goodness I only have to deal with one split second at a time. If I had to deal with tomorrow today, I’d probably throw my hands into the air and quit. I’m just not that good.

The piano is done for today and it sounds good to my ear. It’s an old piano, she hasn’t been touched and given loving care for a long, long time. He’ll come back again and again to tune her and soon she’ll hold her tune longer and longer and I will get what I’ve wanted for my whole life, to play music on a piano. To put all of the notes together into a song, a sound, a message, and with any luck and skill at all, if I do it right, my piano and I will have a long and happy life together. It won’t matter too much if nobody else wants to listen but it would be nice if someone else wants to sit down beside me and play or take a nap at my feet.

As I go through my day, I love the quiet moments when I cease to think. I believe that the only time we can enjoy the sounds, words and music of our life is when we experience the quiet first. I know it’s the only way we’ll find true love, for people or for dogs. Peace.

[Disclaimer: Darcie may sound a little eccentric at times, she is not crazy. She says that you don't even have to believe in spirits for it to work. It just does. And, just for the record, her dogs bring back the ball and they do sit even when she doesn't say a thing. LOL!]