Taexalia

wild.life

Body Language

This morning I am thinking about my dog and the experience we had last week with a group of children who wanted to meet him. The children were on bikes or scooters and they were noisy and excited. My dog, who is a little shy and unsure sometimes, hid behind me with his tail between his legs. This is sort of sweet, in retrospect, given his sheer size.

Rather than walk away with him, I decided to try and give him, and the children, a good experience. I had to be patient in explaining to the children, and explaining again, that the best way to meet my shy dog is to be calm and quiet and to understand that dogs "see with their noses".

It took them a while to get past the twirly excitement of seeing a big dog and wanting to cover him in cuddles to seeing Logan. Each time they approached wanting to overwhelm him with cuddles, he backed off. Each time he backed off, I turned him in a circle and walked him back towards the children, all the while repeating the mantra - "be calm and let him smell your hand."

After two or three tries, they listened and changed their approach and Logan responded by standing still and giving a little wag of his tail and once he had seen them with his nose he was happy for them to pat his head, neck and to run their hands along his back. As this was happening I gave him a biscuit or two to reward him.

This morning I am sitting watching the rain pounding down over Table Rock Lake, brought to us by Tropical Depression Hermine, and thinking about how much more we can connect with a person, or animal, if we take the time to see them for who they really are, rather than pushing our own needs and wants onto them and then being left behind as they run to the hills with their tail between their legs.

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Posted on September 9, 2010 in Dog Tails, Thoughtful.

One Response to “Body Language”

  1. Karen says:
    September 10, 2010 at 9:20 pm

    I had to stop and think about this for a minute…this is so true–I can think of so many times I have pushed another away by my own exuberance–gentleness, calmness, letting them be who they are, letting them “see with their noses”…beautiful…
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