OUR DOGS ARE EACH MY BLESSING DURING MELTDOWNS

Dogs are fittingly referred to as being “Man’s Best Friend” and I’ve lived with at least one dog throughout my lifetime. Overall, they’re incredibly loyal and would do anything to protect their human owners. Indeed members of the dog family (including wolves) have been known to raise human children, as if they’re one of their own. Dogs have too been reported to alert neighbours or passers by whenever their human owners were in medical distress.

At this current time me and my family have three dogs. Daisy is a dashalier (dachshund x cavalier), Poppy is a pure dachshund and Cookie Monster is a cavoodle (cavalier x poodle). They’re a very vivacious, playful and good-natured trio, who are also very helpful to me during meltdowns.

Whenever there are signs of a meltdown coming, both Daisy and Cookie immediately run up to me. Cookie starts to lick my face and head, whilst Daisy jumps into my lap. Poppy isn’t quite as affectionate as the other two dogs are, though she remains observant. For instance, when I start yelling out she will place her snout over my mouth (after making sure that I can still breathe through my nose). During meltdowns I tend to (instinctively) wrap things tightly around my neck, because I have a subconscious need for the snug and secure feeling of it. But Poppy doesn’t like me doing this, so she’ll immediately pull the cloth out of my reach, and then will too lick my face.

Additionally, our dogs (particularly Daisy) seem to intuitively understand how I’m feeling at all times, and they also appear to have an idea of what’s happening to me in general. Say, recently mum called me into the living room with the news that my book was in stores across the world, and Daisy suddenly jumped into my lap for a cuddle. It’s almost as if she was wordlessly saying in a high pitched voice “you were feeling down yesterday, so this is excellent news to receive today”! 

As well, whenever the intense topic of our upcoming trial comes up (which is related to a case of historical abuse that I now have PTSD from), Daisy stops what she’s doing and runs over to me. It’s important to mention here that Daisy too has PTSD from a severe attack, by a huge dog larger than myself. That bite was given to her as a puppy two years ago, and so bad that she needed a lot of stitches. So Daisy appears to have a very good understanding of how I myself feel in this current situation.

In addition to being an emotional comfort, dogs are excellent to have as physical company. When our previous three dogs grew old all of us agreed that the house just wouldn’t be the same without having them as pets. We would feel like our home had something very significant missing, and that it would always feel empty. Thus we now have Daisy, Poppy and Cookie living with us. 

Given that they’re such loving and loyal pets to have, it deeply upsets me whenever I see dogs in distress, in much the same way as they don’t like to see any of us being hurt or upset. This act of natural reciprocation really does show that dogs and humans truly are best friends, despite not at all being related biologically.