Finding Gratitude and Healing Through a Dog's Love

Our dog is one of our most beloved and cherished parts of our life. He's fucking amazing. I don't often get to experience positive emotions. Kinda sucks ass to be stuck as the system's tank. I get all the difficult shit no one else can handle and not much else. I get thrown into front to get an ass whopping and then someone else gets to front when we reap the benefits. We're working on changing that, getting me to front more often, and at first I did not want to fucking do that. Because in my mind, fronting is where life kicks my ass. Why would I want to do that. That fucking sucks. But after I got thrown into front at work today, I haven't left, and I am just having a quiet night in at home. It's not transcendentally amazing or anything but it's... nice. But anyway. Point being: I get to hang out with our dog. And I am... grateful for him. He's great for us for obvious and practical reasons. I mean he lets us live a normal life, makes sure we see the outside world every day, feeding him reminds us to eat. That kind of boring shit. But he's also just a ridiculously silly little animal. He's got a strong personality. Lots of opinions about things. We've always loved dogs. Me especially I think. I haven't let myself get attached to any animals in a long, long time. Our family was shitty Yada yada, killed our pets if we stepped out of line, blah blah blah. It hit me hardest out of us when they did that the last time so I turned that emotion off. Can't have something you care about taken away if you refuse to care and all that shit. That's just how we deal with our problems, avoid having them in the first place and if we can't, avoid feeling it. But I've built a relationship with him. Despite myself. I am the best at taking an ass beating but I am also the best at keeping what we hold dear safe and dammit we hold him pretty fucking dear. He's so silly. He does things I am sure are just to make me laugh. He doesn't really like to play fetch, but he likes when I throw the ball the first time, so he can get it and bring it back and then play with it himself in front of me. He uses his front paws a lot and he reminds me of a jumping spider when he does. He gets so excited when I call a training session that he'll run through every trick and task he knows how to do rapid fire before we start. He likes being told he looks handsome more than cute, but pretty seems to be his favorite compliment. He accidentally nailed my friend in the balls and I lost it laughing, he waited until I was done laughing, looked me dead in the face, and then turned and did it again then looked back at me to see if I thought it was as funny the second time. He has very expressive eyebrows, so he makes some very human expressions. But I think my favorite thing about this ridiculous little animal we let into our life is how much mutual trust there is between us. We worked hard to cultivate his trust in us, and he has more than proven himself trustworthy and steady. He will start to bark and if I tell him it's fine, he believes me, but we got there by every time he barked as a puppy I got up to see what it was, and explained in a calm tone what I was and if he needed to worry about it. And sometimes he did, I'll give him that, and he would be allowed or even encouraged to keep barking if that was the case. Sometimes it was something dangerous that he needed to be quiet for, so we worked on it and now he has the trust in us to handle anything dangerous. He looks to me to see how to react. Which means I have to be very honest with him. You can't show up with an animal that is very attuned to you and be lying to yourself. That's something I learned when I was doing ranch work. If you walk up to a horse nervous and lying about it, they know and you put both yourself and the horse in a bad situation. If I am uncomfortable around a person, my dog is going to notice and if I try and give him the signal for everything is ok, he knows it's not and will continue to try and alert me to the fact that it's not ok. So, I have to be honest about being uncomfortable, I have to signal to him that it's dangerous, but I have it handled and he needs to be quiet. And he will settle down into quiet watchful support. He doesn't like his feet touched. He's very dainty with his feet. Doesn't like them being wet, doesn't like to walk on certain things, and sure as hell doesn't like me picking up his feet and fucking around between his toes. But there's a lot of thorns where we walk, and if he gets one in his foot, he stops and picks up his foot for me to get it out for him. Because he knows I'm not gonna continue to fuck with him afterwards. Because he knows I know he doesn't like his feet touched and only do it when I have to. He'll give me his paws to clip his nails even though he doesn't like it, because he trusts me. A vet or groomer? They can't touch his feet unless I am there to tell him that they need to. Anyway, all this to say I had a shitty day at work but when I came home, our dog knew and did things I am convinced were on purpose to cheer me up, and I am grateful in spite of myself that we have this ridiculous fucking animal in our house.

The author reflects on the profound positive impact of their dog, contrasting their own past emotional suppression due to familial trauma with the deep, mutual trust they've built with their pet. Despite a difficult day and their own struggles with 'fronting' and experiencing positive emotions, the dog's silly antics and steady presence provide comfort and gratitude, illustrating a significant step in personal healing and emotional integration.

I love my dog sm