Jeff Reagan is the founder of the ‘Patriot Health Alliance’ and he writes an interesting article: He said that, “Last week, Karen and I were volunteering at our favorite dog rescue, Harlequin Haven. They have this beautiful plot of land out in Bethel, Ohio where the dogs can run around and wrestle while they wait for someone to adopt them. While Karen and I were there I was talking to Jo, who runs the rescue. Jo lives and breathes this dog rescue 24 hours a day, and you can see her passion for helping dogs from the moment you say “hello” to her. We were chatting about the adoption process, when she brought up something that I found interesting…She said 99% of the people that come and look at the dogs, leave without adopting a dog because they’re looking for what they consider the “perfect dog.” If a dog has a little gray around their muzzle some people don’t want them.
If a dog is over the age of 8, most people don’t want them. If one of the dog’s ears hang a little different than the other ear, some people don’t want them. If the dog is a little overweight, some people don’t want them either. She said it’s heartbreaking to watch people come and visit the dogs, only not adopt one because the dog isn’t perfect.”
Striving for perfection in dogs or humans while finding our way on earth is a false god. Nobody and probably no thing is perfect. Most of us aren’t even close to perfect.
Even the best athletes in the world aren’t perfect at their sport. Jack Nicklaus lost way more golf tournaments than he ever won. Babe Ruth struck out more times than he ever hit a homerun.
We need to learn to be happy with who we are and with the progress we are making. That doesn’t mean that we cease striving as we should always try to improve because there will always be room to do that. Pets are always working at being better pets.
How about just being happy with “good enough”? Where something is not, is when‘ repairing the brakes on another’s car or having an inexperienced mechanic work on your airplane engine. I’m sure we can all get the point. But when it comes to humans and pets we should all be able to tolerate ‘good enough’ Why?
Because we are mostly ‘good enough’ while we sojourn on earth. Speaking for myself, I have never met a perfect person or a perfect pet, but I have surely loved the people and the pets I have met. I have loved them with all their imperfections and they in turn, I believe, have loved me in mine. If we were to use the ‘tit for tat’ comparison with those visitors at the Dog Rescue, for every little hair out of place on the dog they were perusing, we could find a hair out of place on the picky, ‘might have been,’ dog rescuer. “As long as we are happy with what “good enough” brings, that’s all that should matter when it comes to pets and people.” Pets have the same emotions as we do, when they are lonely and would like companionship they hunger for it just as we do. When they are abused they cower and want to escape the abuser. There are people who abuse them as if they had no feelings, but thank goodness most of us know that pets are mostly human too. Andy Rooney said “The average dog is a nicer person than the average person” That may be true in the sense that a dog (pet) most likely cannot logically think through and plot an evil deed as can a human. Most all pets are innocent of evil thoughts and seek only love and companionship.