The healing powers of dogs

Yesterday, I came into the house and, as usual, my dog, Maddie, ran over to greet me, her tail wagging as she circled to be petted over and over again.

I got down on the floor and gave her a big hug. Getting down on the floor, and getting up, is not so easy, but that's what I wanted to do. I held her there, feeling the warmth of her body and the beat of her heart. It was better than taking an Ativan. She likes to cuddle on the couch and rest her head on your leg, but she's not big on getting a bear-hug (dog-hug?) on the floor. Still, she stood patiently for a bit but then dashed out of my embrace. She went into her perfect downward dog, then ran off and brought me a toy. We played tug-of-war and she ran around and around the dining room table. Made me laugh. So I got two doses of medicine.

With the healing powers of dogness on my mind, I sat down at my computer to check on the blogs that I follow and saw that New York Times editor Dana Jennings, who writes on the Well blog about his fight against an aggressive form of prostate cancer, had just posted about the ways in which the family dog has helped him. In a post titled "Finding My Inner Dog Through Cancer," he writes that their 12-year-old miniature poodle, Bijou, has been a canine Zen master, teaching him to understand his "inner dog," napping in the sun whenever possible and not keeping his feelings buried inside.

And, echoing the thoughts that I had just been having, he writes, "So often, we — dogs and humans — just need to be near each other. We need the presence of another heartbeat, the inhale and exhale of another soul. Dogs understand the healing power of having your skull kneaded, and constantly raise their heads toward our hands, the way plants turn toward the sun."

In an earlier post, he wrote about how Bijou helped teach him how to live in the present, appreciating the simple pleasures of daily life.

Maddie, my two-and-a-half-year-old chocolate labrador retriever, has turned into a real pleasure. During her long puppyhood, I complained about her behavior, but now she's doing for me all the things Jennings writes about.

I let her off the leash when walking around the lake, where she runs into the water, dashes into the woods and comes when called. Usually I put her back on the leash when we are about three-quarters of the way around. I don't know if this was coincidence or training, but yesterday she stopped and stood at the spot where I usually leash her.

When I took my mini-vacations, she was a welcome overnight guest in the home of our friends, Jim and Jane Bloom. She runs around in the backyard with their dog, Blue, and then settles into the household routine. They are really early risers, and sometimes Jim takes a nap in the afternoon after work. Maddie gets in bed with him and rests her head on his shoulder. She stayed overnight once with our friend, Karen, and slept in the bed with her son. It's great to have a dog that people like to have in their home.

Good dog!

Did I mention that I'm keeping the dog?

Katie took this photo of Maddie watching her friend Simba
swim earlier this fall. Below left, Ben shares the couch with the dog.

Good medicine is underfoot. It is also on my couch and frequently by my side.
It is the dog that I threatened to give up over the summer.

In August, I wrote a querulous post headlined, “Does Anyone Want a Dog?” It was about my frustration with at a year and a half. No matter how often we walked her, she frequently left us a “present” on her favorite spot in the kitchen, which had begun to smell like a kennel.

Finally I came up with a solution. I had kept her downstairs overnight, giving her the run of the dining room and kitchen, because I kind of liked the idea not sharing my bedroom with her. But I broke down and got her a new LLBean bed and put it in my room. At first she woke me up at crazy hours like 4 a.m., insisting on going out. I took her out and then left her downstairs and went back up for more much-needed rest. Eventually she slept to a more respectable hour, say around 6 or 6:30 a.m.
But even after going out, with nothing in her stomach, she sometimes still had an accident on the floor. I had one other idea: Let her sleep on the couch. She really likes the couch but we kept shooing her off. Except for when I had a lapdog as a child, I never let my big dogs on the couch. I decided I could make an exception for this medium-sized dog.

So I put one of my mother’s afghans in the dog’s favorite corner and let her hang out there when I went back upstairs. And that was the end of the messing on the floor. That side of the couch, meanwhile, has become the dog’s spot. I guess that means she’s spoiled, but she is well-behaved in most other ways. And I like sitting next to her while we watch TV or read. I can cuddle with her without having to get down on the floor. I can understand why they take dogs to hospitals and nursing homes for therapeutic purposes. There is something incredibly calming about petting and snuggling up with a dog, feeling its heart beating. I’m not a cat person, but I suppose cat-lovers find similar rewards in being close to their animals.

Now Maddie seems to prefer spending the whole night on the couch. She jumps right up there and curls up in her spot after our last walk of
the night. When I hear Katie getting ready for school in the morning, I stumble downstairs, walk the dog, then go back up for a couple of hours without really waking up. The downside with dogs, of course, is that you have to walk them in bad weather. I usually don’t really mind, because it gets me out. I will find out tomorrow where my hematocrit level is, but I figure it can’t be that bad because I just walked a couple of miles with her, fueled by a black and white cookie (OK, three cookies, but they were minis).

I thought of coming home after my first loop, because my legs felt a little heavy and I was getting a bit winded going up a hill. Yesterday I cut it short because I wasn’t feeling that great. But today, either out of stubbornness or to prove to myself that I’m OK or to give the dog her usual workout, I went twice around the lake.

When I came home, my head was pounding a little and I could feel my heart beating. (Should I admit this? Well I guess I just did). It felt good to touch my toes and let my head hang down. The dog came over and nuzzled me. Good dog.