From this Austin Kleon interview:
What isn’t about dogs?
I have learned more from my dogs, and from my horses to a lesser extent, than I’ve learned from almost anything else in my life, including from one of the most expensive educations that could be crammed down a gullet.
Dogs are devoted, forgiving, intuitive to a fault, and intelligent beyond our reckoning. When I am without my dog, if there is a trip where he can’t come with me, I feel like a Philip Pullmancharacter who possesses a spirit animal and has been separated. There is a sense of bereavement– I know real bereavement but this is different– as if some fundamental aspect of my life has cleaved off, a slab has calved off the glacier.
I mean, I like people, too, but there’s just something about a good dog that is not replicated in a human relationship and anyone who has had a good dog knows what I mean. To be clear; all dogs are good dogs. There are only people who have made bad dogs. I have been that person and it has taken me years to learn how to be a good dog person. It is not intuitive. It is a skill and it is as important as any I have learned. I grieve the mistakes I have made with my dogs—my short temper, my mistaken assumptions.
Rescue a dog and if you don’t know what you’re doing, as I didn’t for so long, find a trainer who can show you. It will change your life forever.
