Change It Up With Your Dog
Like seasons, dogs change. There's the puppy stage followed by the adolescent frat-boy stage. Eventually, but never soon enough, things settle down around the 2-year point when (hopefully) your dog craves routine. Walk him same time day-in day-out where he always manages to do his business on that lush green lawn while the owner is weeding it. Oh, how all creatures great and small thrive on the unexceptional!
Up to a certain point that is. Don't you ever get that same-ole-same-ole fatigue? Rush hour, cleaning the bathroom, dancing like a complete idiot in the elevator when you're alone...(Okay - I stopped doing it when I turned thirty...err...nine). Well dogs are the same; they need change.
It finally dawned on me this past summer that my dog enjoyed sniffing more than walking, so I decided to transform the brisk evening walk into a sniff-a-thon. I let him nose around to his heart's content - thorny bushes, pee-stained telephone poles or sigh, Mr. Weed-Puller's lush grass. Not only did this new approach to dog-walking inject new life into my pooch's 10-year old body, but every walk led to a new neighborhood adventure. I discovered a family of rabbits living in the shrubs growing against Miss Pennyworth's ivy-covered wall, I found 3 nerf footballs, 5 grass-stained baseballs and a bloody hockey puck with a tooth stuck to it. By golly, I felt like Dora the Explorer!
Didn't stop there - I also changed up his diet. He had become far too fond of red meats so I fed him more turkey, salmon and Filipino food, (he goes gaga for kare-kare).
They say that you can't teach an old dog new tricks, I could never teach my dog any, but I taught him to experience life in a new way, though be it humble as it is. Cuz life is about the small stuff and its wonders are endless.
