Yahoo Finance ‘Is your dog married?’ What a 10-year-old’s question tells us about human understanding
I don’t spend enough time around kids. My children are grown, I don’t teach undergrads anymore, and my younger relatives are not nearby. I’ll admit, my bubble is narrow – partly pandemic related, partly stage of life.
But I realized the other day that I might need to blow up that bubble just to spur my creativity.
My dog and I have restarted our pet therapy visits to a local hospital. Pre-March 2020, we went weekly to see patients and staff through out the whole hospital, from the intensive care unit and cardiac ICU to surgery recovery, from the maternity area to the emergency room. Then we stopped.
We’ve recently returned, and the other day, a 10-year old patient made me think differently.
We talked about my dog Matisse, what kind of dog she is, and how old she is. Then this old soul of a child stopped me in my tracks.
“Is Matisse married?”
“Uhhh. No.”
“Does she have children?”
“She had several puppies … children, before I knew her.”
“Does she live with her children?”
“No, they live with other people,” I said.
“She doesn’t get to see her children? She doesn’t live with her family?”
Tears were in her eyes by this point. We were veering onto a track that I wasn’t sure how to handle. Her mother stepped in and saved the day.
“I think Nancy is Matisse’s family now. She’s like her mom.”
I mouthed, “Thank you.”
My new young friend seemed OK with that and moved to another topic. The atmosphere settled.
But what I realized is that the power of that question, which to me seemed out of the blue, reminded me of several rules I should follow.
First, make no assumptions. From her perspective, sitting in a hospital missing her own family, that little girl thought about the dog missing hers. That made sense to her, even if it threw me.
Second, step into other shoes. When I think about it, as I’ve stayed in my house these last many months, my circle has shrunk. So I need to be proactive in finding people who are different and, failing that, try to imagine putting myself in another person’s place to try and understand another way of thinking.
Third, trust the dog. Now that we’re back at the hospital, I watch my dog react to patients and staff – maybe as many as 30 or 40 in a 90-minute visit. She instinctively knows whether to approach a person, whether to wait for the person to reach out to her, and how much nuzzling to do.
In this case, she put her head on the bed and waited. The little girl found her way to petting, timidly at first and then with more action. Sometimes, dog emotional intelligence beats that of humans. At least this human.
Nancy Napier is a distinguished professor at Boise State University in Idaho. nnapier@boisestate.edu. She is co-author of “The Bridge Generation of Vietnam: Spanning Wartime to Boomtime.”
Bosses want remote workers back in the office. Employees resist. 3 reasons for the gap
Consider this surprising, yet ordinary, way to become more creative
Dogs need 100 practice tries to learn new behaviors. Here’s what people require
Vietnamese man helped Boise State students needing emergency help. What BSU just did
