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So, I sit here as the storm clouds are rolling in my small-town Belleville, Illinois. Love these days where I can reflect on things. My reflections go with the words ‘trust” a lot. The beauty of trust with dogs in particular. Dogs have forever been the most forgiving animals that have ever chose to be around man. We’ve desecrated their ancestors and made them almost extinct. It is our instinct to be social. Dogs make that easy for us in a couple of ways. One they are forgiving. Two, they don’t judge your behaviors. For me my human relationships in my life in particular have always been centered around giving and expecting some type of return. This has made me cautious to the genuine hearts that are out there. I’ve always tried to center my heart around giving because I want to give and expect nothing in return. I think that’s what is awesome about the dog for me.
Snickers’s story is centered around me as a young man out of college looking for a dog I could have a special relationship with. One that I would be absolutely loved. This would’ve probably worked out if I had even and understanding of what that could be. I realize at the end of my teens and the beginning of my adult life, I felt I only knew what it was like to be loved and not what it felt like to give love. Interesting right? It’s true though. I had not lived a life or giving. A fraction of what people had given to me to help me get through school, to grow up, clothes on my back, the sacrifices my parents made for me. My personal relationships were always a disaster outside of my family. Cheating, arguing, ignoring, and just indifference. Don’t get me wrong, I was a very nice person.. I got Snickers at the time because my ego said he would love me and respect me. What I got was a mirror into who I was on the inside.
Snickers became aggressive not because he was born that way but because of my selfishness and immaturity as a person who was supposed to take care of him. I was rough handed with him at times during those early years do to me not having any type of self-control. This was not a time in my life that I’m most proud of. This did shape me and realized that change could happen in an instance with in a person. But that doesn’t mean everyone will see it, including Snickers. I swore to him after a bad incident that I would never let the temper get the best of me. The truth is I believe we all can change when we see the monster in the mirror and own our own actions.
This road to rebuild trust like any relationship was long and hard. It was never easy. There were even times since a behavior that he learned to snap because he was uncomfortable came out, like when he was scared. See, I learned that once we are hurt or scared we have behaviors we use to cope and when we use those behaviors to cope we hope that the thing making us unsure goes away. I stayed and tried different approaches not going back to with what made us clash in the past. I waited until we could get different results. Some days this took lots, and lots of tries. After a while I found what had worked for him and started to do those things. I never ever moved on to something when I knew he was uncomfortable. I wanted him to know he could let go and trust me. When we communicate trust with anything, I’ve found it’s done not through talking but through behavior and patience. My patience and behavior are what let Snickers learn to trust. I had to be patient for him to see that I had changed. It took time after time to work through same behaviors. Each time we did, I saw nervousness slip away and joy come back.
Through a dog, I learned how to make a relationship trust. I learned what it was to give and not want anything back. I learned that no matter the circumstances that we would figure a way to come back from our damaged past. I’m thankful in so many ways we never gave up on each other and through the darkest times in each others life we can honestly say we were there, purely out of selflessness and the wanting to be there.
As the thunder echoes my past in the forefront of my thoughts, I’m reminded that it’s not about what you get when you give. It’s about giving because that’s what you want to do. Lilly, here in the now is a product of the learning experience of me and Snickers. She trusts me 100% as why she can do things extremely easy as for other dogs that I’ve worked with and have seen would be extremely difficult. We continue to learn about each other. I understand she has a past, and that past is what got her here. It is my past that has gotten me here. We can change in an instance. That’s not what’s hard. What is truly hard about change is that it has to come from the inside and the knowing that no one or nothing may never ever see or understand that change. I am accepting of me, and my shortcomings. I’m neither ashamed nor am I proud but because I’ve had the life I’ve had my relationships are better than they ever could’ve been.
Thanks for reading!!