I could learn a lot from my dog

Most of the time when I think about my dog, Grace, a large lab/Great Pyrenees mix, I would not think she could teach me much. For one thing, she's kind of a dope, cute but not very bright.  However, I can now see many personality traits in her that I would do well to adopt.  These are a few of the things I have learned:

1) Be adventurous in eating.  Based on the disgusting eating habits of my dog, you would not expect I would want to take any cues from her. The part that I can draw from is her willingness to try new things, almost anything, in fact, and then decide if it's good or not.  In my own life, I could stand to be a little more open to new foods than I sometimes am.  This, I have already started to change.

2) Live in the moment.  Grace doesn't worry about what happened 10 minutes ago, and she never fears the future.  She fully embraces the right now.  Sometimes, this means she gets an impulse to dig a hole, so she does it, and is remorseful about it later.  I think I could definitely use a lot more spontaneity in my life and a lot less regret and worry.

3) Meet new people with an open mind.  To Grace, every person and dog is a potential friend. She never hesitates to walk right up to any person or animal and greet them with curiosity and friendliness. I am sometimes jealous of her total lack of social awkwardness, but the more I watch her, the more it inspires me to follow her lead.

4) Embrace playtime.  Grace often finds a toy and starts racing around the house with it all by herself. She plays with joyful abandon and loves it when others join in. She even tries to get the cats to play, and it almost works sometimes. The most important part is that she is having fun, and who couldn't use a little more fun in their life?

Nicknames

I have never been a person that uses nicknames for people.  I can't think of one person that I use a nickname for, young or old, or ever have. Okay, except for my father-in-law, who goes by Bob even though his name is Charles. No one can explain that one to me.

The thing is, every pet I have had over the last 13 years has wound up with numerous nicknames, some cutesy, mostly unexplainable as to origin.  And the thing is, they typically actually know and respond to all their nicknames. 

 Our dog Vegas, that we had for 12 years, was the first to have a series of nicknames.  She somehow became Pooh Bear, Pooh, Booh, Poobaloo, and Veggie, among others I can't recall now.  We have a cat, Cirrus, who has the fewest names...mostly C, and P (complicated explanation for that one).  Fee, our other cat, has and responds to Bee, Busy Bee, Feasel B, Feasie Bee, Fizz...you get the idea.  Our new dog, Grace, has started to acquire nicknames quickly...G, Gracie, Gracie Mae, and my favorite, Grace-a-saurus. 

I have thinking about this lately and trying to decide how unusual we are.  We talk to the pets a lot, not like crazy people that think they will respond or that they even really understand us.  I think we do it (maybe me more than the husband, I'll admit) because they respond to us based on our tone, and they learn what different tones mean to them by us talking to them a lot.  Maybe that's crazy talk, or maybe that's dog whisperer talk.  Either way, I'm certain I will not stop doing it anytime soon, so think what you want about it.