My Dog, My Therapist

The doctor is in. One bone, please!

She listens and doesn't judge.

She doesn’t take anything I say personally. I suspect this is because she doesn’t understand much of what I say, which makes sense since half the time I don’t know what I’m talking about.

She is mainly concerned about how I feel, which she can read in my voice. When I curse or otherwise raise my voice, her ears flatten against her head, and she slinks over to lick my face and attempt to give me comfort for whatever is bothering me.

Nothing I say or do affects her for very long. When I’m angry at her for something, she’s over it as soon as the tone of my voice changes, and she never raises the subject again.

She’s incredibly loyal. I could mistreat her, which I would never do, and she wouldn’t unfriend or stop loving me. Which is all the more reason why I would never mistreat her.

She never insults or mocks me because I don’t think the same way she does, even though, technically speaking, she and I are from different species (note: species, not parties).

She doesn’t throw labels at me or attempt to put what I say into neat boxes that define who I am. To her, “right” and “left wing” are part of the same bird and both wings are needed for that bird to fly.

She doesn’t try to sell me on crazy conspiracy theories pulled from the dark web. She doesn’t push ideologies on me or send me links to videos and X posts where, invariably, someone is insulting or demonizing someone else.

In fact, she doesn’t talk at all. She is happy just to hang out and be with me.

She has this amazing ability, which I greatly appreciate, of getting me out of my head and into the real world.

Let’s go for a walk, Dad! I insist we go for a walk. No, I’m not waiting. Let’s go now!

I think you know what world I’m talking about. The world of real things like trees and squirrels and bunny rabbits. The world where you can touch things and hold them in your hand. The world where bees sip nectar from flowers and they may even sting you if you get too close.   

It's so easy to forget that this real world exists when I’m lost in my human world of newsfeeds and chatrooms and videos of angry, shouting men and beautiful women in bikinis preening before the camera.

The worst is all the hate and the demonizing. That group of people is evil. Those people over there are trying to bring down our way of life. Everything is so dark and foreboding in that human world. The world is ending, the apocalypse is near.

My therapist doesn’t care about any of that. Why? Because it’s not real. It’s all in my head. Or rather, it’s in the screen I’m staring into, and from there, it gets into my head.

This is what I love about her. Not just that she loves me unconditionally, but that in a world of shadows, she is always reminding me what is real and what isn’t. What matters and what doesn’t.  

Look at the snow, Dad! Isn’t it beautiful?

Throw the ball! C’mon, Dad!

All this for the price of room and board and occasional treats.

My dog, my therapist.

Oh, that the world was run by canines. How much more peaceful it would be!