Fearful Dogs and Human Emotion
We’ve long established that Lilly, our canine heroine, responds to every shift around her. That’s true at home. It’s true when we’re out in public. It’s true in the various dog training classes we take. Yet, Lilly responds to different emotions in different ways. She finds sadness much less “scary” than frustration or anger or generalized grumpiness.
All manner of life threatening and full-on terminal situations continue to swirl around us. It’s been that way for a long time with no resolution in sight. When you throw on top of that other everyday concerns about money, work, and goals, I promise you the swings of emotion become both frequent and strong.
Assume, until further notice, an effusive angst surrounds us, which I’m sure isn’t easy for Lilly. And, I feel terrible about that too. Most of the time, we’re pretty good at masking the frustration in our voices to avoid upsetting Lilly unnecessarily … because she seems to assume any stern tone of voice is aimed at her.
Sometimes we slip. And in sharing the details of our day, in trading tales of the nonstop baloney, our voices intensify, our tone shifts, a few curse words slip through. This causes Lilly either to:
- Get round headed, low, and wiggly
- Run / hide for anywhere between a few minutes and a few hours
Oddly enough, Lilly notices sadness, but it most often does not make her flee. Instead, she offers kisses and cuddles … or sometimes merely just serves as a witness to whatever brand of blue strikes that day or that moment.
Lilly’s empathetic response extends to full on wailing, which always surprises me.
There are greater woes in the world than mine, so I won’t enumerate what’s making me weepy here. Just know that I had a long, loud cry last Friday. An my girl remained by my side until I cried it all out … which took a while. Then, she stayed with me while I mustered whatever I had left to continue with my day.
I’m not sure how other people get through life without the love and compassion of a dog. Maybe everyone else has a better support system in place. Maybe they house more inner strength. Maybe they haven’t hit that stage in life where everything can go to blazes all at the same time.