A Dog's Purpose

I work in a small boutique dog & cat food store and have opportunities to meet and chat with pet parents regularly. The other day a woman came in who I had met briefly several months before, shortly after my dog Gil died. At the time, she expressed some anxiety anticipating the day she would have to say goodbye to her own dog, who is 15 yrs old, and she brought up the topic again the other day.

She paused in our conversation and hesitated, as if trying to find the right words to express what she was feeling.  I’m paraphrasing, but she said, “(when your dog dies) what do you do with all this love that you have for them?” And she outstretched her arms, as if going to hug someone to illustrate the immense love she felt for her dog.

I told her, “you turn it inward and give all that love to yourself, just as your dog has done all these years.” The look on her face was almost wistful as she told me she never really thought much about loving herself.

I then told her that I think our dogs are in our lives to teach us to open and expand our hearts, and to learn to love ourselves and ultimately others, the way they love us, truly unconditionally. They don’t care how we look, what we say or what we do; they just come back again and again and love us, without judgment, without fail. They want us to feel the enormity of the love within us, that is us, so that we can give it to ourselves and share it with others as they do.

This is the essence of Dogs’ purpose on earth, in my opinion. They provide an example, a model if you will, to know what unconditional love looks like so that we can begin to emulate them; we can take this on as their challenge to us, and maybe more accurately, their gift to us.

We don’t have to wait for our dogs to pass away of course to begin the practice of self love. But it is never too late. Start where you are. How can you cut yourself some slack? Is there something today that you can forgive yourself for? Can you find it within to let go of something about yourself that ‘bothers’ you, in the spirit of your dog’s love for you? Maybe there is a healthy habit you can add to your daily routine. There are numerous ways to begin this lesson.

What do you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts.