What Dogs Can Teach Us About Joy
What if we were better at finding joy in the mundane?
My dog Edison was due for a physical and vaccinations recently so we headed to the vet. Edison is, in my unbiased opinion, the cutest dog ever.
He’s large and goofy with white fur and black spots. He has deep soulful eyes. He also has the funniest ears, very expressive, and usually one is lying on his head while the other is popped out like an old antenna searching for a signal.
Sadly those ears don’t actually work, so we’ve taught Edison doggy sign language.
When I take him for a walk, random strangers stop their cars to tell me how cute he is. Everyone is his friend. He even has his own Instagram account.
Edison is very exuberant and finds joy in everything we do. When Edison is happy he vibrates with joy. He wags his tail so hard his whole butt moves with him. And when he smiles, it’s a thing of beauty.
We get into the car to go to the vet and, oh my god, we’re going for a ride, it’s the best thing ever! Then we get to the vet and people are oohing and ahhing and petting him and it’s the best thing ever! The vet tech gave him a treat of liver spread on a pretzel, and it was the best thing ever! We came home and took a nice long walk and… well, you get the idea.
