318. Full Body Wag

We can learn so much from our dogs about how to find simple pleasures in our daily lives.

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

Eunice: This is Eunice Lehmacher. I’m from Clemson, South Carolina, and I think it’s going to be okay because of my dog, Lula. She’s six years old and six pounds, a mostly chihuahua mix, but the type that doesn’t really hardly ever bark and loves everybody but is kind of bashful.  Way that she encourages me is that she seems to be friends with everybody.

When we go for a walk and anybody goes by, she um, wags her tail and wants to go up and talk to them. And if she meets one of my neighbors who she especially loves, she wags so much that her whole body starts to wag. She’s like that when I come home too, even if I, whether I’ve been gone for  eight hours or five minutes, she’s always happy to see me.

But the thing that I find the most encouraging is this dog, who I’ve had now for about six years, goes out in the backyard and chases birds and squirrels. And you know, She has never caught one. In fact, I think there’s essentially no chance that she ever will catch one. But nevertheless, when she gets out the back door and up the steps and sees one, she runs at full speed.

The squirrels, well you know what happens to birds, but the squirrels usually run up a tree and she doesn’t even realize to look up the tree to see it. She just thinks it disappeared. Now you would think after almost every day for six years chasing squirrels and birds who she can’t catch, that she would have long since gone off of this hobby.

But she doesn’t. She lives in the moment, she sees a squirrel that shouldn’t be in her yard, and she chases it out of the yard. Would that I had such enthusiasm for pursuits.  that I do day after day and only succeed part of the time. Lula’s energy and life and love for people is something that can inspire me and make me happy any day.