Who Do You Love?

Valentine's Day is soon upon us. Formal and informal polls reveal that a lot of us out there put a significant amount of our emotional energy into our companion animal relationships. I really enjoyed reading about a recent global poll which reveals that 1 in 5 [1/5th] adults surveyed would prefer their pet than their partner.

I'm not very sentimental, but I do not take it for granted that I can spread my emotional and physical energy easily among both my human and animal loved ones and enjoy all. I live for perfect moments and most all of them come from some interaction of affection or connection or even awareness between myself and my inner core of people and the many dogs in my life.

In the realm of positive dog training, effort towards a non-violent and loving form of training as opposed to a more punitive one increases the probability that a loving and more fluid partnership is likely. Learning how to take on, from the earliest of ages, a positive, clear and benevolent leadership role and working with your animal at a realistic rate of expectation versus the You Do It Or Else Approach in which you dare not start training until the dog is 4 months lest you harm him is my Valentine's Wish For Dogs.

Doing a wee bit of journalistic research into the history of Valentine's Day, I learned that once upon a time, the context involved a lot of whipping and force. And double gasp, included the use of dog skin whips.

Valentine's Day for me is a sign that we're still going to be dealing with winter weather for at least another 6 weeks. Snow storms coming in waves make driving periodically hazardous and includes lots of shoveling.

However you celebrate the mid of the month, heck any day, any month, savor your loved ones, whatever their species.