Friday, July 18, 2014

Correlating Happiness

                It was recently brought to my attention that my mood depends on the amount of canines I have been in contact with recently. I have realized that this is completely true! I was raised with dogs near me every single day, as I was raised in a sled dog racing household. There were never less than 5 dogs around me at a given time in my life.

 When I was younger, and my family would visit our other dog racing friends, my mother would said she thought I had a sixth sense with the dogs. I knew which dogs to stay away from and which dogs were okay to approach, despite them running around like crazy on their chains and jumping two feet over my head (as I was like three feet tall at the time). As soon as I approached this crazy dog, they would simmer to my level and let me pet and love them. I also had an instance when I crawled into our puppy-birthing dog house while our mama dog was nursing, and I snuggled with her, which dogs are normally very protective when around their puppies.

 Once I moved away from home, I had about the roughest year of my life. I know that your first year away from home and family is statistically a rough time, but I could be convinced that it could be partially linked to not having any dogs in my life. Once I moved into a house the next year, I couldn’t be happier that my roommate has a dog. I mean she is small enough to be a cat, but she still has her dog qualities. Having this little nugget to snuggle with me sped up my breakup process at that time.

  A while ago, I had a stint of not being around any dogs, and I became very cranky. This is when the yolk was broken over my head that my mood depends on the canine love I receive. The next day, I was in a park and I started to feel my spirits lifting as I spotted dog after dog.


   I think I could also guess that the amount of dog there is correlates to my happiness. Meaning, the bigger the dog, the happier the Rita. E.g. I have the greatest time with my friend’s Australian shepherd, or my buddy, I call my brother, Frost. The little toy dogs can put a grin on my face, but nothing compared to a loping, slobbering lab or (I am biased) GWP. 
          
 After this, I think it is obvious I love the dogs in my life, as I love taking pictures with them (or of them)! I'm not sure if I have a life lesson linked to this blog post, or if I am just missing all of the dogs in my life. I have not seen my buddy, Frost, since Christmas, and the Aussie of my life moved to Florida a couple weeks ago. But good news! Quinn and I have been snuggling it up like crazy, every night!
Perhaps the life lesson to this is if you see I am down, or maybe another dog lover in your life; give them a dog! Just kidding, that's a large responsibility present, stick with chocolate.

 



Here's to the dogs that keep us happy.