10 things Goose taught us

Lessons from my professor-dog

👌 It’s the little things:

Seeing him do small and seemingly minor shit is what makes me love this dog most.

The way his ears tilt back when I call his name.
How he makes sad eyes when I’m paying too much attention to my laptop, and not enough on him.
A sort of bark/whine combo he does when he’s really excited to see us.

But we don’t seem to look at our lives with the same appreciation for these minor details. We’re trained to see the mundane routine of life as something to get through, en route to the “big moments.”

> Work and chores are just things to suffer through in order to allow yourself to enjoy the good parts of life.

> The 1,700+ hours you work per year are just a means to an end, for the meager two weeks of vacation.

But the big moments are the same as small moments… in the moment at least.

And if we’re not enjoying the little moments. Chances are, it won’t be so easy to enjoy the big ones.

Maybe it’s not about doing the big, gigantic things.

Maybe it’s about doing the small things, fully.

Maybe all we have are small things.

That matter a lot.

💬 Communication is a lot more than words.

Goose is so damn expressive, particularly in his ears. They’ll perk up when he’s excited. They’ll flop down behind his head when he’s in a loving, affectionate mood. A one-up, one-down type of thing when he’s curious.

You can learn a lot from his ears.

The lesson I extract is that words are only a part of communication. And maybe not the most important part.

It reminds me of a post from David Perell:

Maya Angelou said: "People will forget what you said, but they'll never forget how you made them feel." That's the problem with overthinking: you're so busy trying to script the perfect sentence that you forget to show up as an actual human being — and it's the actual human being part that people connect with.

🧠 We’re only aware of a small fraction of reality.

His sense of smell is incredible. I know that’s not surprising… he’s a dog, after all.

But for God’s sake, we live on the 6^th floor of our building and he can smell when his friend Josie is being walked down on the street next to our balcony. He’ll start barking at the balcony door WHILE the balcony door is closed.

Isn’t that just insane?

I like to think about the way he perceives the world. In a smell-first type of way (much different than our sight-first world).

Our reality is shaped by our senses. And while we can forget to recognize it, our pups experience a completely different reality than we do.

💤 Rest more.

The guy has a seemingly unlimited amount of energy when it’s the weekend and we’re out in the mountains or on a lake somewhere. But on days when I’m working and writing, he likes to rest a surprising amount.

I think we underestimate the amount of rest we need as humans. We’re constantly on the go, and we’d like to think we can fit things into every little gap of time on our calendars, while still bringing our best selves to each thing.

I think we’re probably wrong.

🍽️ Food is delicious.

He really knows how to eat. And he savors every bite.

🤝 Love all people. Love your people more.

Goose really does love all people. He’s a super affectionate dog, and we got him comfortable around people at a young age (he was raised in a city).

But there’s no one he loves more than his people. Yes, that’s Emily and I. But it’s also all of our friends, and the connection happens almost immediately.

When we introduce Goose to our friends for the first time – especially when we bring them into our apartment – he’s a bit closed off. Still affectionate and he’ll come to say hi, but he’s not “excited” to see them immediately.

But it doesn’t take long. Through some non-verbal “they’re cool” message that we send to him without knowing, he’s able to detect that these people are his people too. And from that point on, they’re part of the pack.

If we’re all walking somewhere, he turns back to make sure the whole gang is there (no man left behind). When any one of our friends leaves for a second, just for a quick bathroom excursion, Goose will be wagging his tail, excited upon their return like they’ve come home from war.

Lesson: be kind to everybody. But when you make a deep connection, cherish that and take the steps to nurture it.

😃 It’s not hard to make people happy.

He doesn’t even have to try, it just happens. Even during my grumpiest moods, he knows how to make me smile. By simply being.

Goose teaches us that we have the tools to positively impact other people in our lives – and it’s not hard to use them. We just have to do it.

It’s the “I like your shirt” to a stranger. It’s paying for the person behind you in line for coffee. It’s giving a great tip for great service.

We just have to do it.

🧘 The moment > attachments.

This one takes a real zen type of person to master. Or just a half-witted dog.

But when Goose is presented with a ball or some sort of toy to play fetch with, nothing else matters. His favorite people or dogs in the world could suddenly show up – he wouldn’t pay them any mind, maybe a quick glance. He’s locked in.

No attachments from the past. Just because he’s grown to love me and Emily in previous moments, doesn’t mean that we matter one bit to him in this one.

An Anthony deMello quote I like is “When the eye is unobstructed, the result is sight. When the ear is unobstructed, the result is hearing. When the mind is unobstructed, the result is truth. When the heart is unobstructed, the result is joy and love.”

The “heart unobstructed” part refers to letting go of attachments.

I think that the human instinct is to be turned off by this idea – at least it’s mine. We love our attachments and for good reason: our relationships, our memories, our hopes – they add color to our lives.

So maybe it’s not about living a life that’s completely detached. At least that’s not what Goose does anyway… it’s really just when we’re playing fetch.

Maybe it’s about finding the moments in life that allow you to fully detach, when you feel fully present, and leaning into those.

For me, skiing is a reliable source of full-body presence. My mind can’t afford to drift, and I’m focused on the task at hand – too preoccupied to hold on to anything else but the moment. Joy.

🤧 Unfiltered joy is contagious.

When Goose is doing his full-body wag, the excited groans, and the trotting around with excitement – it’s hard not to feel happy.

I think that a lot of our negative emotions have been tamped down because they’ve been deemed as “bad.” But I have a slight suspicion that this may be the case with our positive emotions too, even though it doesn’t make as much intuitive sense.

We’ve learned to act cool. Maybe we’ve been told – through words or otherwise – that it’s “too much.” And so we slightly repress our positive emotions in public, not allowing ourselves to fully extract all the possible joy from the moment.

When I first started seeing my girlfriend, we watched a comedy special together – can’t remember which one. She remembers being so surprised and almost a bit weirded out at how loudly I laughed, even though we were just watching on TV. I remember feeling confused about why watching it on TV would keep me from a full-on belly laugh.

I think it’s a symptom of this.

But maybe this sort of pure, unfiltered joy is contagious – and maybe allowing ourselves to fully be there in the moment of joy, to fully experience and take that feeling in, is an incredible gift to the people around us.

(read my piece Laugh Like a Crazy Person)

🐾 The destination isn’t so important.

We could be hiking to the craziest mountain view of all time. But it’s not the view at the top that matters to him – it’s all the smells along the way.

I think we have a tendency to focus on the big things: the big moments, the big views, the big milestones. But maybe it’s the journey that’s most important.

Yes, we’re not dogs. And of course we’re going to enjoy the big views – I don’t want to poo-poo that experience for anyone… enjoy away.

But maybe there’s something to be learned. Maybe if we didn’t focus as much on the final destination, we’d be able to enjoy the journey a bit more.

Seems like life is mostly journey.

Picture of Goose being a dog