Puppy Dog Dreams

It has been a tough year so far but I have to tell you, my heart is full.

Why?

Puppy dog dreams.

The day job has been horrible to the point of making me sick to my stomach. But you know what? I woke up Thursday morning with a deeper appreciation of the simple things in life and for the first time in a long time, some of that stress tying my guts up in knots has released.

I rarely ever dream. I don't care what the dream experts say, if I can't remember having had a dream, I didn't dream. I don't usually get more than 6 hours sleep a night, so there's no room in my schedule for dreaming. But in the wee hours of Thursday morning, I had a dream.

I can't remember most of it. Can't even tell you the gist of what it was about. What I did wake up remembering, though, was that in the dream, I was surrounded by three wonderful, loveable dogs.

Dogs are my favorite people. They represent to me everything that is good and right in the world. I am never more at ease than in the company of dogs.

The Lord knows my life is chaotic and He knows how much I adore His four-legged creation, the dog. And I think that dream was sent to me expressly for the purpose of dissipating some of that stress and also to give me something else to think about.

Because all Thursday, all I could think about was Cesar Millan aka The Dog Whisperer and what I've learned from watching him. It made me think of the times when he rehabs a dog that has been severely abused, mistreated or neglected, and the mistreatment causes the dog to become extremely shy and to quit using his nose--the primary mode he has for living out his life and taking in all it has to offer. These dogs hunch in on themselves--if they could disappear, they would do so gladly. Their little noses are pulled as far back from any human or animal as they can get.

It reminded me that was an analogy of my life. In my work I'm not physically abused. But it is abusive in other ways--any time an employer sets up a situation where you can't possibly succeed, so that your days are spent getting reamed out by customers, it is a form of abuse. It makes for a very unhappy and extremely long 8 hours a day. Worse, it kills your creativity, cell by cell.

My primary mode for living out life is the written word--it's my sensory organ of choice. Humans may be primarily sight-hounds but I don't process much of life without the written word. And as work has killed the creativity, I have, by equivalent, been hunching in on myself, refusing to write, too incapacitated to use my "nose".

But the combination of the Genesis win, supportive friends and family, and finally, a simple reassuring dream filled with wonderful dogs, has enabled me to start inching my nose out just a little. Still hesitant. Still ready to retract it at a moment's notice--but inching it out there fraction by fraction.

Just as it takes a good while to rehab a fearful, shy dog, so it will take a while to bring creativity back into full play.

But at least now I have the hope that it will happen.

Which Tires Me More? Revising The Novel Or Training The Dog?

The jury's still out on that one. 8-)

Well I've finally gotten my momentum going over the last couple weeks and begun sorting through crit feedback and revising the novel. But it's slow going. Lots of other things going on in life, including what I hope is a new and wonderful phase of life with my dog.

Long, dull story short, severe back pain in recent years has really squashed my ability to walk the dog. Which means for the first 2 years of her life, she hasn't been well trained and hasn't been properly socialized, which makes for a myriad of problems.

But the Lord heard my pleas and eased the back pain to the point that I'm able to get out and get moderate amounts of exercise (not like I used to, alas) but still very good. As I've stated here before, you can't possibly know the joy of freedom of movement until it has been taken away from you.

Anyway, the ginormous task before me now is correcting 2 years worth of ill-trained dog. Someone told me about a show called "The Dog Whisperer" and while I don't have cable, I found a DVD at the library featuring episodes on aggression (one of Aztec's issues). Based on that, I've learned that I've been doing just about everything wrong in interacting with my dog. One of us has been the pack leader in my apartment and as you can guess, it wasn't me.

So I realized I needed to start at square one - squelching the hyperactivity when Aztec sees me putting on shoes and socks in prep for going for a walk. Takes LOTS of repetitions for her to lay down calmly and do what I want. Add to that, several times we've gone out today on short leash training jaunts. I revise a little of the novel, then go outside for a training period with the dog. Then I repeat the process over and over throughout the day.

I'm finding that both activities require vast amounts of patience - something which I never had much of to begin with. In terms of mileage, Aztec and I didn't get very far because I have to stop cold every time she begins to pull on the leash.

As to my writing, I've been at it a couple weekends now and I'm STILL revising chapter ONE! OYE!

But they are both very worthy endeavors and I'm going to persist. No one could understand the great joy I will feel when I have Aztec trained to the point that she walks properly on leash and I can trust her around other people and animals. And I'm excited for Aztec too - thinking about how the world will be opened up for her when she's a good canine citizen!

Likewise, my joy will be off the charts when this novel is finally tweaked for the last time and I send the little darling off to agents and editors to do with what they will.

I'm anxious for lots of neighborhood jaunts with the dog and lots of other Arizona based novels are bouncing around in my brain hankering to get out - if I would just finish this one and put it to bed.

Bed. Now there's a tempting thought. But I think I've got just enough energy for one more round of revisions and one more dog walk tonight...