Life Lessons From A Brave Little Dog

This is Cricket. She’s a derp.

This is Cricket. And she’s recently taught me a lesson in being brave.

See, Cricket is pretty laid back. Her favorite pastimes are 1) laying under blankets and 2) laying on pillows, and her life’s mission is to kiss as many faces as possible. She’s the silliest, most loving dog I have ever met. She’s also a total chicken.

Unfortunately for Cricket, her big brother, Stitch, can be a bit of a bully. He’s not mean, or aggressive, but he was attacked by a group of dogs at a park when he was a puppy, and since then he can be a little gruff. Especially towards poor Cricket. When Stitch gets tired of Cricket, or if he wants attention from someone who is petting her, he’ll bark and snap at her– generally scaring her half to death– and then wag his tail and insert himself into whatever situation he was trying to achieve. He’s never hurt her, and we’ve never been too worried about it, but poor Cricket has always been a little nervous if Stitch gets too close. That is, until a couple of days ago.

Here’s the story.

Behold the terror of the mighty Stitch!

Recently, we started Cricket on some medication for a thyroid deficiency. Along with helping her start to lose some weight –she’s a little chunky at the moment– the meds have caused a marked increase in her overall energy and general sassiness. She plays more, there’s more light in her eyes, and she keeps up way better when we go for walks. She’s like a whole new dog. Well, these changes manifested in a big way the other night when Cricket found herself in a predicament: Cricket was in the bedroom and wanted to come out, but Stitch was in the way.

Now, normally, these kinds of situations lead to Cricket getting stuck in the room until one of us moves Stitch so she can escape. She’ll cry, and shuffle her feet, and yelp, and generally put on a good show of being anxious until we rescue her. But the other night none of that happened. Instead, she just barked at him.

And it solved her problem.

Stitch was laying in the doorway, Cricket was “trapped” in the bedroom, and for a minute it seemed like she would go into her normal routine. But she didn’t. She marched right up to Stitch and barked at him. And you know what? Stitch got all confused, looked at me and his mom, and walked away. Cricket was free.

It was that easy. One bark and the big scary monster went away. And that got me thinking:

How many times in my life would a perceived problem have disappeared if I’d just walked up and “barked” at it?

Seriously. How many times has there been a metaphorical Stitch in the doorway to something I want or want to do? How often do we shy away from something because we worry that it will be hard, or because we’re afraid others will laugh at us, or just because we are just afraid of not being good at it? Too many, right?

So from now on I’m going to try to be more like Cricket. Sure, something may seem big and scary, but who knows what will happen if I just walk up and show it who’s boss?

Thanks for reading, you’ve got this,

-Ian

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