Meeting Between Pet Parents and Their Dogs : Our lessons

 

As part of my daily morning schedule , I go for a walk in the joggers park which is about one km away from my home , in Pune.

 

This was, as usual a bright day , time was around 7 AM in the morning .

 

As I was walking towards the park, I saw two pet owners coming from two opposite directions on the opposite side of road . Both of them ladies , one of them was young with Labrador and another one was in the middle age , holding the Pomeranian dog . Obviously there was a difference in size and aggressive posturing of dogs . Generally smaller breeds are more aggressive. Barking is part of posturing . Labradors are generally less aggressive . Though all male dogs are generally more aggressive than female dogs . In this case , both the dogs were male.

 

Probably both the pet owners were meeting for the first time and they started chatting . Generally pet owners discuss about diet , habits, behaviour , wellness of dogs and Vets. These are the issues on which pet owners exchange the notes. So , these two pet owners also started exchanging notes . In the same way , dogs also started smelling each other and started exchanging notes.

 

So far so good, exchange was quite pleasant initially but the male Pomeranian started making aggressive barking and posturing. Initially both the pet owners ignored it but as the Pomeranian continued, male Labrador got out of control and started attacking the Pomeranian.

 

 

 

 

Pomeranian retreated to its owner but Labrador will have none of it and he refused to listen to his owner for a while who was continuously yelling at him. Somehow, she managed to control her dog.

 

Now, both the dogs were controlled and, on the leash, but owners started yelling at each other. There were at least ten on lookers watching this not so pleasant exchange.

 

I had to step in, since one of the pet owners was from my society and I knew her.

 

This is what happens in our life. Our dogs represent our ego and are extension of our emotional mind which goes out of our control at the very first opportunity.

 

So, who is supposed to control it?

 

Your rational mind?

 

How do you engage it? It’s very simple. Just wait for a minute or two and use the power of pause. Your rational mind will take control.

 

“Dogs are dogs and if we expect them to behave like human beings, that is a wrong expectation”. That is all I said and both the ladies were looking at me , totally embarrassed .

 

Their rational mind was engaged.

 

Both ladies apologised to each other and moved away, with the promise to meet again.

 

Without their dogs though! I am sure they are going to discuss the solutions to control aggressiveness of their pets, in their first meeting only.

 

Solution to all the problems of the world can be found if we keep our emotions aside. Those who do it are successful negotiators and that is the difference between tree and wood.

 

Incidently , you can apply the same analogy to Russia and Ukraine also , though scale will be different.

 

# Lifeisgood.