By Jonathan Robinson
I have a confession: my dog talks to me. I mean I hear her speak to me inside my head. I’m serious.
Of course, when I began hearing her voice in my head, I thought I was going bananas. I figured there was a screw loose in my brain. But I noticed that the innocent voice I was hearing inside my head made a lot of sense, so I decided to listen to it before I checked myself into a mental hospital.
I know what you’re probably thinking: this guy is one sick puppy. At least that’s what I would think if someone told me their dog talks to them. But one day, while lying on the couch with my Golden Retriever girl named Happy, I began wondering what my cute little girl thought of me. Suddenly, my mental daydream was interrupted by a strange sounding voice. The voice sounded like the light, friendly song of a five-year-old little girl. In a strangely innocent lilting pitch, I perceived the words “I think you are very loving, but you spend a lot of time chasing your tail.”
I immediately thought I had taken my mental and emotional problems to a whole new level. Being depressed is one thing, but hearing your dog’s voice in your head is reserved for people who are carted away to mental hospitals. I got scared. It didn’t help matters when I heard that same innocent voice inside my head say, “Don’t be scared. I’ve always been talking to you; but now you’re finally listening.”
I looked into Happy’s wise brown eyes and said out loud, “Is that really you?”
I didn’t really expect an answer, but I got one anyway. Once again, I heard that innocent sounding voice as clearly as if she were lying in my lap—which she was. She said, “Yep, it’s me.”
Having never encountered anything like this before, I didn’t really know what to think or do about it. Before I could fully get my bearings, Happy’s “voice” announced itself again. “Do you wanna be all serious and worried, or would you rather play? Come on, let’s play! Just go with hearing my voice and don’t worry about it. It’ll be fun. Try it for a little bit and see what it’s like. New things are always scary at first, but I promise you I won’t bite.”
I continued to sit on the couch, dumbfounded by what was taking place. I thought to myself that at least what Happy was “saying” made some sense. I reasoned that if hearing her voice in my head sent me over the edge, I could always call my psychiatrist. But, for the time being, I was willing to listen to what this “voice” had to say.
“Okay, little girl, let’s play ball,” I said out loud.
“Yippee!” her voice squealed inside my head. Happy jumped off my lap and gazed at me with a look of joy and delight. “There’s so much I want to talk to you about. You’ve been chasing your tail for so long that it’s hard for me to watch you. I just want you to be happy, and play, and enjoy life like I do. It’s really not that hard.”
Forgetting the strangeness of what was going on, I defensively shot back “Well, it’s not that easy.”
“Sure it is,” Happy quickly replied. “It’s the easiest thing in the world. Let me ask you a question. Can you throw a ball?” Happy often seemed to be asking me this question with her eager eyes and wagging tail. Yet, this time I heard her ask me this question in my head.
“Yes, of course I can throw a ball,” I said. I wondered where she was going with this.
Happy’s dancing ears and eyes were in full bloom as she looked straight at me. She excitedly began, “If you can throw a ball, you can play. Right now you can moan and growl about problems—and go on chasing your tail, or you can throw a ball and have fun with me. It’s not hard.”
“But those problems are real,” I insisted.
Happy, sighed. “You’re hearing my words, but you’re not really listening. You said you wanted to be happier. You can’t be happy while being grumpy about everything and growling at people who aren’t even in the room with you.”
Maybe it was the way she had looked at me with her loving eyes, but somehow her message finally got through my thick skull. My “problems” were not the problem. It was my continual thinking about them–to the exclusion of everything else– that created my suffering. On the other hand, Happy lived in the moment. She seemed to delight in whatever was right in front of her. She never complained about the past or whimpered about the future.
By now, I was getting a bit used to conversing with my four-legged sage. Even if I was going bananas and making it all up in my head, the conversation seemed to be going somewhere. I decided to ask the question I really wanted to know. “Okay, then, the real question I want to know is how can I be happier?”
“It’s not hard to be happy,” she started. “The puppies of your race are happy a lot of the time, so it can’t be that hard. But as people grow older, that joy can leave. Why do so many humans look so stressed and depressed? I just don’t understand. It makes me sad to see people feeling so bad.”
I could see that Happy was really saddened by her perception of people’s suffering. In an attempt to be helpful, I figured I could finally teach my little pooch some hard-fought wisdom. It was obvious to me that she didn’t understand all the things people have to contend with. In a compassionate and somewhat condescending tone I began, “Well, Happy, the world is very challenging for people. They lose their joy because, as they get older, they have a lot of problems and responsibilities they need to handle. Also, there are things like war and disease and loss–and global warming.”
Happy raised her head from my lap and looked up at me quizzically. With an innocence that melted my heart, I heard her voice say, “I don’t see any war here; I don’t see any problems; I don’t see any disease. Maybe that’s just a story in your head. What I see right here and now is a loving human being cuddling with me. Life is good!” Her tail wagged with enthusiasm.
I had to admit, upon hearing of her world, my reality sounded like a nightmare of my own creation. I had almost forgotten that such a simple and obvious world as the one she lived in truly existed.
Then, something really strange happened. For a moment, something in me shifted and I “saw” the world from her perspective. Sitting there on the couch while gently petting her head, it felt like everything grew very still and quiet. I looked out my window to the trees just outside, noticing that they seemed to glow as they were lit up by the sun. I sensed a world of eternal tranquility. I sensed a world permeated by love. It was so incredibly peaceful! The streaming rays of the setting sun lit up dust particles that floated across the room. It was magical to watch! It was like a huge burden had been lifted from my shoulders. It felt like silence had, in a strange way, become “louder” or more noticeable. I hadn’t felt so light and free since I had been a little child.
Happy seemed to pick up on my experience and my thoughts. She finally broke the silence by saying, “My world is a lot like the world of your young ones. So I guess the way to be happier is to become like the puppies of your species.”
Happy’s words reminded me of what Jesus had once said: “Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”
It was clear to me I had spent many years feeling far away from the experience of a little child. In fact, I had been feeling very, very old. However, I still had hope. From the depths of my hope and faith in something better, I asked another question: “Can you show me how to be like a little child again?”
Happy looked at me with her expectant and playful eyes. “I would love to,” was her enthusiastic reply.
