Before you keep reading there is something you need to know about Titan. He is my soul dog. Since I met this boy of mine, we connected in a way that I didn’t know was possible between human and animal. This dog knew how I was feeling and always had that incredible gift of knowing what I needed, when I needed it. He is my therapy dog through and through and has honestly been a huge pillar in my life for the past five years. I know that our connection is incredibly special, but I know I’m not the only one who feels like this about their dog.
I don’t know if any of this has been scientifically proven, but from what I know personally, my dogs know when I’m sad and they comfort me, and I know many other people have said the same. So if dogs know when you’re sad, do they know when you’re happy or angry?
I had this thought because I went for a walk with Titan earlier and met up with my parents. We were talking about some heated topics and I wasn’t calm at all, I was closer to angry and was talking quite loudly, gesturing with my hands and was quite tense.
Titan usually walks like a dream but tonight he decided to charge at a few gates, to pull on the leash constantly and was so tense around other dogs who walked passed us. I was growing increasingly annoyed until I stopped. I asked him to focus, and we took a few deep breaths together. And then it hit me. He’s me right now🤷‍♀️ He’s tense, he’s acting up and it’s all because I let my emotions affect our walk. After this moment, we changed to topics that were a lot calmer, I focused a lot more on Titan and keeping us both calm and our walk changed back to being a good walk. We played a few games on the road, got our emotions back to where they should be, and it was like nothing ever happened.
I wonder how many training sessions become negative because we allow our emotions to affect it.
I wonder how many walks have turned into proper work outs because we allow our tension to affect the atmosphere of the walk.I wonder how much we affect our dog’s emotions and aren’t the slightest bit aware of it.
Maybe next time, if our dogs are acting up, we need to see if we’re the ones that need to change before carrying on.