Be The Dog

Back in April, Pamela over at Something Wagging had a post titled, You Can’t Do That! Oh yeah? Watch Me.

In the post Pamela made the observation that there are so many people who tell us what we cannot do.  Pamela stated “Well I like surprises—people and animals that do awesome things because they don’t know they’re not expected to do them well.”

Then she posted a video of a St. Bernard doing agility.

I know.  Not normally a dog you would associate with that sport.

But here’s the kicker, the St. Bernard has no idea that the agility ring isn’t designed for large dogs, he just knows that it’s something he enjoys doing.  And he does it quite well I might add.

In the comments I noted in response to another blogger’s comment, “it’s much harder trying to do something others tell you, you can’t, then doing something when you just don’t know better.”

I ended the post with, “Be the St. Bernard.”

Pamela said it was a lovely mantra.

A couple of weeks ago Pamela had another post, Don’t Worry About Messing Up Your Hair, in which she noted dog’s aren’t self-conscious like humans are.

A dog doesn’t care what it looks like after rolling in that mud puddle, the dog just knows that the mud puddle looks fun.  After this post I noted perhaps the mantra should change from Be The St. Bernard to Be The Dog.

Dogs have a way of living in the moment, it doesn’t matter how their day went, if you come home and say want to go for a walk, the dog seizes the opportunity.

The dog has no idea of what it can’t do.  Can’t isn’t a word dogs understand.

After listening to today’s keynote speaker, Lena West via the live stream from BlogPaws 2012 Conference I’ve decided I need to take can’t out of my vocabulary.

There are a number of things I need to do if I want to take this blog to the next level.

If I want this blog to live up to its full potential, I need to seize opportunities.

I need to be the dog.