Why I Wish I Were a Dog

Sometimes when I'm playing with my dogs, I find myself envying them. Life for them is so easy. All they have to do is nuzzle up and slobber on me, or give me that puppy-dog look and I simply must fawn all over them, giving them hugs and kisses and telling them how much I love them. Wouldn't it be nice if that's all we had to do to the humans we love? Dogs make no bones about asking for what they want. Yet we humans, who supposedly are much smarter and more articulate, tend to screw up even the simplest of communications. Our relationships are so complicated, so intricate, so...not simple.

Dogs can sleep all day, secure in knowing that they are warm, dry, and have a full belly. To earn their keep, some dogs may bark at a passing stranger. Meanwhile, we humans go out for eight or more hours a day to do something we dislike so we can go out and forage and pay for our basic necessities. If all my basic needs were taken care of believe me, I'd sleep all day, too! Dogs sure have figured out a clever way to get all their basic needs met while exerting minimum effort. Sure sounds pretty smart, if you ask me.

These days, there are less obese dogs than there are Americans. Why is that? Because we control what our dog eats and what he does not eat. We take him to the vet and if the vet says he's fat, we put him on a doggy diet until he's in shape again. If we know enough to deny our dog table scraps so he does not get fat, how come we do not do the same for ourselves? We assume he does not know better, so we step in to save him from himself. Yet, we never intervene on ourselves when we know we are doing something that is damaging to us. Life sure would be less complicated if someone else prevented us from overindulging.

Which of these scenarios sounds better to you? 1) sleep all day, get up, stretch and yawn, wander over to the food bowl, get a bit to eat and drink, go outside, pee on a couple of trees, bark at a couple of squirrels and then run up to the one we adore and beg for their love. Or 2) Wake up earlier than we'd like, bicker with the one we love, bundle up the kids and get them out the door, eat a Pop-tart on the drive to work, do a job we hate during the best hours of the day, come home, forage for dinner, bicker with the one we love, put the kids to bed, and go to sleep, only to repeat the cycle the next day.

That's when I have to stop and wonder, are we really the supreme race we think we are?