If you have ever loved a dog over a span of years, then you know two things with certainty. First, that bond is full of mystery – we read each other as if the intuition of both dog and person is sharpened with time. They respond to worlds of sensation we cannot penetrate. Watching them closely, we can catch glimpses of their cosmos which exists next to us and all around us. If we pay attention when their ears go up though we hear nothing, if we try to figure out the line of trails they seem to point out by sniffing, we will learn how to see and feel the land we cover in ways we had not imagined. There is nothing machine-like about them. Each is as complicated an individual as we are. If we train and treat them with respect and with the acknowledgement that they are to be trusted, they will be loyal to the end.
Second, it is not among men that we should search for agape – that sacrificial and all-encompassing love exists in dogs, and, God help them, is extended to us by them if we exert ourselves only a little.
Rocky Kanaka has made his living by showing those two truths to anyone who cares to look. He has been working with dogs since 2015 and travels the US and Canada doing this. He has a farm where he takes those dogs who need more intensive rehab. What has made his name is what appears to be a simple act. He enters a kennel and sits with a traumatized dog. He describes what he sees in that dog’s behavior, its gestures, body positions, expressions. He is patient, acutely observant and kind. He believes that suffering should be soothed, and he acts to do so. That is the lucky five-point star of a good human being.
Please, spend the time watching these two videos. If you are having a bad day, your day will improve.
Pit Bull Stares at Kennel Wall Until I Try This… – Rocky Kanaka
Pupdates | Sitting with Dogs happy dog adoptions and more – YouTube
