Healthy Living

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I watch my dogs a lot. I 'm a behaviorist at heart, not in the "true sense" but in the sense of simply understanding behavior, and love to study the way people and animals interact and why. I've found that a person can learn a great deal about themselves by studying others. Its intriguing to see the differences in behavior. Recently I was noticing something about animal communication. It's so cool to me how they communicate with each other without words. We as humans think that we're so smart because we have a verbal language, and a lot of times we try to increase that language by adding words to our vocabulary and so on. We believe that more words means better communication and I'm not so sure about this. I think our verbal communication actually at times hinders our communication with each other. Verbal language is not the only language we use. We also have a body language and when we lean on one language more than the other, there can be major miscommunication. Have you ever told someone they looked nice when you really thought they didn't, or told someone you weren't angry at them when you really were, and you felt deep down that they didn't believe you? Well, they probably didn't. And here's one reason why. When I watch my dogs, as they communicate with each other, I realize that's it, that's all they've got, body language and actions. I ponder how I, myself, and others also communicate this way. My bigger dog is the boss. She is so selfish. I love her bunches but she is the epitome of what we call a female dog. My smaller dog is a male but is very playful and, although protective and a little defensive, he's very docile. Now if the smaller dog gets too defensive, to the point that his body language seems aggressive, my female will straighten him out. Now at this point, the male dog does not continue to be aggressive. He actually takes the responsibility for the act. There's no verbal explanation. There's no rationalization. There's no blaming someone else. He cowers. He bows his head and lies down closer to the ground. He clearly demonstrates with his posture that he is sorry. Now I know there's some fear there and I'm sure that if he could he would rather not swallow his pride, but that's not an option for him. They're stuck together. He knows she could hurt him but there's also just an element of respect so he wants to make sure that there is no misunderstanding. My female dog, although much bigger, will do the same posturing when she has done something that appears to be unfair or aggressive to him. In fact, she does it with me. There was a fly in the house there other day and what she likes to do is to sit very still and act like she's not interested in the fly. She ignores him until he gets close enough that she can snap at him and catch him. When this happens, she's not playing, she's serious and snaps very aggressively. I forgot that she does this and although I had seen the fly I wasn't paying much attention to what was going on and reached out to pat the fur behind her ear. I came from behind her and she apparently thought I was the fly and if I hadn't been quick enough it would have hurt! Immediately she realized what had happened and cowered down beside me, tail wagging, licking my hand. It was obvious that she was very sorry and that she realized that she made a mistake. What does all of this have to do with our communication? We forget about body language when we are communicating. But make no mistake, body language is very clear to the one receiving the communication and in some cases its just clear enough to cause confusion. We, in general, take words so seriously. Its what we hear that our minds take in so deeply. Even negative words are so very powerful to us, but that's only half of what's going on. When our words don't match our actions or body language it leaves the other person wondering what to believe. And, on the flip side, if we do something that is very hurtful and try to dig our way out with words, the other person may want to believe us but “actions speak louder than words”? We can also lie to ourselves. When we use words to lie to ourselves it hurts us as well as those around us and in this case, its only our body language and actions that can discern the lie. Put simply, if someone says that you've hurt them with your actions, listen!!!! You may even discover something about yourself that you never knew and the truth is always better than a lie. The Bible tells us to examine ourselves and this is an opportunity to do just that. So, the moral of the story, don't think that words can do what you need to physically do and don't believe everything you hear!!!!

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