Where else to find it than with a dog.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. What is the holiday spirit? I want the real, honest, non-commercial holiday spirit, not the Hallmark version, not the Butterball version either. I want something that I can aspire to, something magical.
Where can I find such a thing? Not on social media, that’s for sure. Social media has become a fire hose of stuff and that’s not for me. Yes, Facebook, I mentioned in my kitchen that my nephew is interested in gardening and I’d probably give him tools and seeds for his gift and now—BAM—I’m seeing ads for hoes and buckets every two seconds. That just feels creepy. It’s definitely not the holiday spirit.
I am looking for the humanity side of the holiday. You know, the kindness and the caring part. I am looking for the all-encompassing sense of love and care that my grandmother made me feel. It didn’t matter that that the tree was a small cedar on the table, decorated with construction paper chains and dried apple slices. The house was filled with comfort, safety and love. That’s the feeling I want to recapture. The sense that someone loves me so much that they’d never let me get hurt. Adulthood tends to stomp that right out of you and I’d love to feel it again.
You’ll be delighted to hear that I did find it. Of course, the moment wasn’t offered up by a human. Oh no, it was a dog. It’s always a dog. It was a big, floppy, slobbery golden retriever named Cooper. Cooper is an awesome therapy dog in the Rockingham County, Virginia, schools and adores everyone. He never met a stranger, just friends he doesn’t know yet.
Cooper was in one of my classes, learning how to use recordable buttons to speak to his human. He got the Treat button right away. He understood the Play button equally fast and whenever he hit the button his favorite toy, a stuffed monkey, was pulled out of the bag to play. Then we taught a more difficult concept, the Help button. Hitting the Help button when you need someone’s aid makes sense to dogs. Ball rolled under the sofa, hit the Help button. A Lunchable sandwich, still wrapped in cellophane, caused Coop to hit the Help button because he wanted it unwrapped for his lunch. That was a no, even though he did ask politely.
On the day of graduation, one of the other students brought her younger dog in with her graduating dog for a family graduation photo. The student dog, Endora, was just as good with Button Speak as Cooper was. Asher, the third student, also grabbed hold of using buttons to boss around his human and excelled in class.
Endora’s younger sibling dog, tiny 10-pound Jade, was both amazed and overexcited. At one point, Endora’s human mama was holding Jade up so she wouldn’t nip anyone now that she was getting irritable. Jade was just overwhelmed. Cooper approached Jade but Jade wasn’t having it. She lunged and snapped and acted as though she’d rip Cooper’s nose clean off his face if he didn’t back up. He backed up all the way across the room to his mama.
Here’s where it takes a turn for the fascinating. Let me set this up for you. Endora’s mama is seated holding Jade in the corner. Her human daughter is right next to her and I am right next to the daughter, so the furthest from Jade, Miss Cranky Pants.
Cooper, meanwhile, has decided that Jade poses a threat to the classroom, and here is the sequence of what he does with that decision.
First, he quietly pads over to me, takes my wrist in his mouth like he’s holding a kitten, and lightly pulls me over to a “safe” spot near his mama.
He then goes back and carefully takes the daughter’s wrist and pulls her over to safety.
Cooper then goes back—closest he’s gotten to Jade—and gets his doggie friend Endora to move away from Jade.
Once again into the fray, he goes back to save the buttons on the floor. As he turns to leave Jade one last time, he looks at her mom, who’s still holding her, as if to say, “We’ll pray for you.”
Cooper saw people in what he thought was a dangerous situation and did what he could. No direction, no commands, no trained cues, Cooper saw people who needed help and helped. This holiday season, my hope for humans everywhere, is that we become more like Cooper. Help when you can, do what you can, even pulling someone gently towards safety when necessary.
Be like Cooper.
I hope you know how much I appreciate each and every one of you, my readers. So from me, my husband Patrick and our lively pack of dogs, Bertie, Biscuit, Paige, Squirrel, Dobby and Tonks, we wish you more comfort and kindness than your heart can hold. Best wishes for a fabulous 2024.
The story above first appeared in our November / December 2023 issue. For more like it subscribe today or log in with your active BRC+ Membership. Thank you for your support!