how to be pawsitive

Dear Upa,

I like dogs more than I like humans. That’s not exactly a secret. 

I’ve been spending time with dogs at an animal shelter recently and was sitting in the grass with one of my closest friends, Lump, a gorgeous golden Labrador. She was looking at me with her beautiful big eyes and her paw on my knee and I felt like at that moment, we were both teaching each other something.            

I’ve never understood people. 

I’m this wonderfully made, rare mix of just the right amount of shy, awkward and introverted to result in me being the socially inept mess that I am, and for the most part, I’ve learned to live with it. 

I just don’t get people. They’re so infuriatingly complicated and emotional. Some problems don’t have solutions, and those I completely understand needing help for. I definitely do. 

But a lot of humans just hate seeing things logically, and I don’t understand that. For me, so far, it’s always been a “suck it up and deal with it” situation. Like, what is the point of crying over spilt milk instead of cleaning it up and pouring yourself another glass? Humans are just downright annoying, unnecessary, rude, and say hurtful things for literally no reason at all.

And I know I’m super insensitive, and it’s because I simply don’t understand humans. I don’t like interacting with anyone for too long and hate initiating conversations with strangers.

But dogs. 

For as long back as I can remember, I’ve loved them. Maybe it’s the way I was brought up, maybe it’s because of my family, but I can’t point out a single reason as to why it’s like that. It just is.

Dogs make sense. They are the only thing I’ve come across in my life that give me pure, unadulterated joy with no conditions attached. I’m the happiest I can be around them and the more time I spend with them at the shelter, the more I find myself falling in love with dogs. 

Where do I even begin? We seriously don’t deserve dogs. I don’t think I can even fathom the number of times I’ve had my heart melt at the shelter. What creature can love so unconditionally? Every paw put on my knee asking for attention, every time one of them climbs into my lap and falls asleep, every time they start rolling in the grass just because they can, every bark, every merciless tug on the chain leash which makes me feel like I’m going to have to get my hands amputated, every gentle, loving look with their eyes wide and their ears pushed back forcing me to stroke their head, every mud-print of a paw on my t-shirt, and every time I’ve fallen over in the mud because a huge Labrador wanted to rub themselves on me, fill me with the kind of joy I’ve never felt before.

But there are a lot of things about dogs that I don’t understand either. I don’t understand being abandoned by a human and still finding the place in your heart to love another. I don’t understand loving a human when they couldn’t love you in the first place, and I don’t understand panting happily in the sunset when there’s so much pain all around you. I don’t understand being in the same room as a dog who has passed away and still stand strong, I don’t understand hearing loud, pained cries of other dogs around you and still keep your tail wagging. 

And when Lump was looking at me with her beautiful big eyes and her paw on my knee, I realised that I was wrong.

I wasn’t the one teaching her that some humans aren’t evil, that some of us are different from the people who were probably responsible for the huge bloody wounds across the back of her head.

She was teaching me. These dogs were teaching me that while there are people who abandon dogs on the road because they’re not a purely bred Dalmatian or because they find out their Doberman has arthritis and that’s too much of a fuss to deal with, there are also humans who have enough love in their hearts to take them in and save them. They were teaching me that for every dog that is dying or has died, there is a building full of dogs who have lived because these humans have saved them. These dogs were teaching me that life can really freaking suck and it’s still possible to be happy. 

I’m slowly learning to look at the world through Lump’s beautiful, big eyes, and I still don’t understand people, but I think that one day, I might.

I still have a lot to learn.

Bye for now,

Aditi