Going to the Dogs

What if someone loved you the way a dog does? Could you do the same for them?

Recently, I was having a beer with a divorced dad of four who was struggling with a new relationship. I listened to him describe how quickly he was smitten, the wonderful sex they were having and, best of all, the deep comfort he felt just being in her presence.

“Sounds great!” I said. “What’s the rub?”

He then went on to describe her increasing complaints that he was prioritizing time with his kids. Two were on their own, though still living in town, but the other two were dividing their time between separate household and going through their own adjustments over their parent’s separation. Even though he and his ex were doing a stand-up job of being kind to each other and, yes, prioritizing the kids, he felt increasingly troubled by his girlfriend’s disappointments. She did not have any kids of her own.

This will make any self-respecting parent squirm, and why I have always preferred dating dads. Men who have been involved and growing alongside their baby animals have a depth and humility that comes with organizing themselves around the needs of others. That’s not to say I don’t love men without kids, just that parents are often better suited to weather the shit storms of any relationship.

“Sounds like she wants a different kind of dog.”

He laughed and asked that I elaborate.

^{Image by Andrew S on Unsplash}

To be clear, I’m an unrepentant cat person. My son developed an obsession with cats the moment he became sentient. We brought home two cats from the rescue agency the minute we moved into a new house, well before I bought furniture.

A few years later, I dated a dog man for over a year. His visits traumatized one of my cats so deeply the cat still pees in the four corners of the house. After that experience I made it clear on my dating profile that I am not a dog person and, for the sake of my cat’s sanity and my carpet cleaning bills, I would not, no matter how visually appealing and eloquent you were, be your girlfriend.

Then I told my friend about reading Miguel Ruiz’s book, The Mastery of Love where, among many of his analogies, he claims the perfect relationship is one in which we act like dogs.

But dogs, as my son and I quip, were just so…annoying. I hold a dubious belief that dogs are sycophantic and bubble headed. I don’t want to date that. Why would I want to act like one?

Ruiz asks us to love our people the way we love our dogs. (And, for the sake of this analogy, and other cat lovers, these animals are interchangeable!) A dog knows how to have a perfect relationship with us. They will accompany us wherever we go because they are very interested in their relationship with us. If we don’t want to play, a dog does not sit there and insist we play. They will rest or play on their own and be available to us again when we’re available.

But we train our dogs, right? We cultivate behaviors in them that bend them to our will to fit our lifestyle. Isn’t that changing the dog? Ruiz doesn’t account for the ways we train dogs in his use of dog love as a stand in for human love. I suppose it’s a matter of degree. It’s reasonable and expected that we might ask our partners to modify their behavior on our behalf; leave their shoes at the door rather than sully the house, tell us when they feel hurt rather than bottle it up until it explodes. Our dogs do manage to comply with our requests that they go outside to relieve themselves.

Yet when someone resists the change we ask of them, that’s when we have to take the dog analogy seriously. My brother’s dog barks frantically whenever she sees people hugging. They’ve been unable to train that out of her and they don’t seem interested in my suggestion that she have her vocal cords removed. So, we all accept that hugging each other is accompanied by their dog’s objections.

The very essence of achieving the best possible relationship, according to Ruiz, is to choose what you want and love what you choose. Exactly the way it is. In order to do this, we must understand what our bodies and minds need and what fits well with who we are. This may be at the root of my past discontents; not putting the effort into knowing myself fully and the qualities I want in a partner before jumping into a relationship based upon my attraction to him or his desire for me.

Ruiz writes, “Project what you really are and don’t pretend to be what you are not. If you know what you want, you will find it is just like your relationship with your dog, but better. The right person for you is the one you can love just the way they are.” And, “If someone wants to change you, you are not what that person wants.”

I spent years asking my husband to be someone he wasn’t. I really liked the dog he was, but was more depleted by what he wasn’t. I didn’t know the needs of my heart well enough when I married him to understand that our relationship was going to break me. It was my mistake for not understanding myself better rather than asking him to be the one to change. When I went alone to see the third therapist he and I had seen together I said, “I guess I have to accept who he is or move on.” The therapist nodded. There was little more to say.

What if you already have a dog and want a cat? Ruiz asks us to have the courage to go all in with the dog or let that dog go. If you want to love the person you have, forget the past, begin each day with a higher level of love for them and only be responsible for dealing with your own garbage. You are not in a relationship to clean up your partner’s garbage. You don’t have to like their bad moods and irritating qualities but, if you are committed to your person, you do have to allow their qualities to exist without insisting they change. Do you ask your dog to stop licking his balls?

After many behavior modification products failed to stop my cat from “inappropriately eliminating” throughout the house, my vet suggested I put him on Prozac. When I did, he became more aloof and uninterested in playing with his sister. So, I stopped his Prozac and decided to love my cat just the way he was and continue to clean the carpets regularly. He is a goofy bundle of anxiety and unfettered devotion and now crawls into our laps looking so loved up it’s heart melting. He’s loving me exactly the way he can. I will love him exactly the way he is. That’s all Ruiz is trying to get us to do with our people. And that’s exactly what I want for my friend.

Love, Karin