eLearning
Greatest learning experience of my life… it will surprise you…
Author: Donald Clark
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I had no idea. In fact I had the wrong idea. I never ‘got’ it. Why would anyone want a dog? Then I got one… and ‘got’ it. It’s been one of the deepest and significant learning experiences of my entire life.
First up is the emotion. Now I’m a bit of an old Calvinist, Scottish to boot, and as PJ Wodehouse said “It is never difficult to distinguish between with a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine.” But from first grasp, holding that tiny thing, as it looked into my eyes, I was, as they say… smitten. It only got worse. I became besotted.
O course, you start out with high hopes – that your dog is so smart that it may just squeeze out a GCSE or two… then you realise that it is, well just let’s say cognitively capped. This had a sort of philosophical effect on me as I became more aware that we humans are most likely in the same predicament.
You learn humility.
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Brings your family together. We gather around Doug, take him for walks together. Talk about him. Buy him stuff – loads of stuff. Actually it’s not that he brings your family together he is your family.
Most of all there’s Doug. He’s there all the time, prancing around the house, sleeping, bringing his soft toy (replica of a rat) and wanting to play. But the greatest joy is when he comes and sits next to you or better with his head on you. It would melt an obsidian heart.
So there it is… I flipped. I learnt that you can change your mind on something – big time. What it takes is not reading about dogs, researching dogs, going on a course about dogs – it’s about getting a dog. They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks but you bloody well can. Thanks Doug. You don’t know it but you sort of changed my life mate.