Your Inner Dog.

Be true to yourself! Embrace who you are! Find yourself!
I have heard these phrases thrown around a lot, sometimes straight at me. For a long time their true meaning has eluded me, until I met the dogs.

There is this dog that occasionally comes for our morning walks and as much as I avoid going anywhere near it, I have been observing it closely. As a general park rule, dogs are supposed to be on a leash and so when we are walking this dog is usually on a leash. From the moment we gather at the starting point this dog would not sit still! It would bark at anything and anyone and try to get out of the leash. When I asked why it carries on so much, I was told that it just wanted to start walking and that was it’s way of saying, “Come on, let’s move!” Sure enough, when we start walking it would settle down.

During the walk though, it would still be restless and always seem to want to get in front of the owner who is usually one of the faster ones that ahead of the group . One day the owner asked if I (The only one in the group that is scared of dogs) would be ok for it to go off the leash for a bit. I was feeling brave and had stopped climbing on strangers whenever an off-the-leash dog approached us, so I obliged. As soon as the leash came off, the dog charged to the front of the group and the endless barking stopped! I also observed that it mainly stayed ahead of us and occasionally came to the back but stayed one the outside as if to round us up.

Later I found out that this is a herding dog. Driven by fascination, I decided to look up the traits of herding dogs and this is what came up: Herding dogs, also classified as working dogs, share characteristics and physical traits, such as agility, speed and loyalty. Overall, they are smart, happy, energetic and athletic animals that need to be active.

A few months later I was hosting a party at my house and a friend asked if he could bring his dog along. Yes, A dog at my house! I can hear your gasp from here. After going through my check list when about to come in contact with animals, I felt reassured that this dog would be harmless and not suddenly turn into a large wolf and eat me alive. And so the dog came to the party. As promised, it made no fuss, it was happy to engage with quests that gave it attention, otherwise it stayed on the one spot and was just happy to be around people. I was quite impressed.

This dog was a Labrador and when I looked it up, this is what I found: These are dogs bred to work and work hard and they love to have jobs to do, particularly retrieving. They are intelligent and fairly easy to train, partly from their desire to work with people. Owing to their energetic nature, Labradors who are left alone or not well exercised can become destructive — chewing, digging and barking to excess.

Based on what I observed and the little that I have read, what I got from this is that while both dogs like to work, the herd dogs like to take charge and thrive when left alone to do their job. Labradors on the other hand like to be and work alongside people and when left alone for too long, they become destructive.

I think we all already have an idea of what kind of dog we relate to best. Whether we realize it or not, we are happiest when we are true to the type of breed we are;true to who we are, and when we are forced or pretend to be something we are not, we get frustrated and can even become destructive.

If you already know who you are and are being true to yourself, kudos! If you are still searching, keep calm, it will come and you’ll know exactly which dog you are. And when you do, embrace it!

So, thinking back to our encounters and interactions both at work and socially or If you could take a guess, which of these two dogs do you think embodies my natural characteristics?

Asking for myself.