Go Easy on Yourself — You’re An Animal

What if I treated myself as well as I treat my dog?

Photo by Alvan Nee on Unsplash

I love my dog, but she’s totally ridiculous.

She’s sweet, loyal, and adorable, but she’s also deeply irrational. She seems convinced that the mailman is going to murder us every time he drops off a package, and she worries that loud trucks going by the house are a dangerous threat. She’s immensely jealous of our cat for no clear reason. She gets weirdly anxious whenever somebody rings the doorbell, and she hides under the bed whenever there’s a rumble of thunder.

It’s frustrating. She’s a pretty smart dog. She knows a lot of words (including every single synonym for “walk” or “treat”). She has impressive self-control at times, sitting still for an unpleasant medication routine several times a day. She can read the room (she intuits, for example, when my wife and I are legitimately busy and when we’ve got the ability to let her out for the 20th time in a day).

So why, at age 12, can’t she figure out that the mailman isn’t actually a threat? Why hasn’t she reached some accommodation with our (admittedly maniacal) cat?

What an irrational, ridiculous animal.

Let me put this another way. My dog is a ridiculous, irrational animal — just like me.