Fit to be Tied (Dyed)

Fit to be Tied (Dyed)

A week ago when we first came to Camp Gone to the Dogs, I was excited but a bit nervous. You see there were nearly two hundred campers, several of which had brought more than one dog (you do the math). Jack is pretty laid back around other dogs but the same can’t be said of Kelsey. Some time in the past two years she has turned into a snarky bitch, which may seem to be a redundant term. Kelsey wants to be the Alpha bitch, but that is my job – to be the Alpha, not a bitch, for those who don’t know dog terms. But Kelsey’s snarkiness comes from fear and anxiety. When another dog comes near she would rather take the offensive, rather than wait to see if she needs to be defensive.
So, here we are at a dog camp, surrounded by hundreds of dogs and here I am with laid back Jack and Kelsey, the bitch. As dog trainer Lois Fair would say, “What were you thinking?!” However my anxiety was immediately addressed in the opening introductions. Seems like I didn’t have the only dog with issues. Dog trainer Sue Sternberg said that many of us had dogs who were snarkelptics!! I wasn’t alone! In order to gives those dogs the space they needed, she passed out tied dyed bandanas – vivid, colorful, visual cues that said to owners, “Hey, this dog needs space!” Suddenly, dozens of snarkeleptic bandanas were being passed around and put around the necks of our dogs without any sense of shame. The bandanas gave each of us the space we needed to work with our dogs and Kelsey made huge strides in being social.
Don’t you wish that we could all wear bandanas that would give visual cues to our moods, as a “heads up” to others? In Victorian times, it was common to wear a black arm band to indicate that you were in mourning. After my father died, I so wanted to wear something like to say to other people that my life had just been turned upside down; I need some space to grieve. Things more so fast in our world, we forget it takes time to heal from loss. A black armband bandana would signal to approach with tenderness and care - the wound is still healing – instead of telling people the story of my loss over and over again.
Likewise, wouldn’t it be great if we could all wear tie-dyed bandanas when we were feeling snarkapletic, like before we had that first cup of coffee, or if we just had a really rotten day? I think that the world would be a much more peaceful place; we wouldn’t be fit to be tied, just fit to be tie-dyed.