Latest / Happy You. Happy Dog. / Paws That Smell Like Pineapple

Transcript

Paws That Smell Like Pineapple · Happy You. Happy Dog.

0:00
Coco Moon: Hello, darling. Today I want to share a little secret
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with you. My aunt has become my entire personality. There was
0:13
probably a time in my life when I had hobbies, interests, things
0:17
to talk about, and then I got four babies. Now my human kids
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ask me how I'm doing, and somehow within a minute, we're
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discussing manna's poop situation, and I don't mean
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casually. Uh-uh. We analyze its shape, color, consistency,
0:37
frequency, and perhaps the most ridiculous part: her poop
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affects my emotional being. Perfect poop. Oh, that is a
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beautiful poo poo. Today's going to be a great day. Slightly
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questionable poop. What's wrong? What does she eat? How does her
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tummy feel? Is she acting normal? I'm canceling
1:04
everything. We have a situation. Mammy must monitor Mana for the
1:08
next 24 hours. And you know what's really funny? I don't
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even think this is weird anymore. That's the problem
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because Poo is only the beginning. There are things I do
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every single day that would be absolutely disgusting if Mana
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wasn't my baby. I pick her eye boogers with my bare fingers. I
1:36
wipe her nose with my hand. It's practically a daily ritual for
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me to smell her breath, her ears, and yes, sometimes her
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butt. Very close-up butt inspection is occasionally
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necessary and important. I'm her mommy. I have responsibilities,
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and then she'll spend who knows how long licking herself. Walk
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right over to me and lick me directly on the face. And what
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do I do? Do I think about where that tongue has just been? Of
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course not. I go, oh, thank you for the kisses, baby. This is
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who I am now, right, Mana? And darling, we haven't even gotten
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to the pause. The pause. Please tell me I am not the only person
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who smells for baby's paws because sometimes they smell
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like popcorn, and Haru Haru's paws actually smell like
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pineapple. I don't know why. I don't need to know why. I just
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know that they do, and I deliberately sniff them. Mana
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will be sleeping next to me. I'll bury my face in her soft
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tummy, and I'll pick up one of her little paws. Hmm. I know.
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I'm aware. That sounds weird when I say out loud. I do it to
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Sora too, and then I squish their little paws a little bit,
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touch each of their paw pads, give them little massages, and
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then I tell myself, "This is so good for them, the massage. But
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the truth is, it's really for me. There's something about
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holding those little paws that comforts me, it makes me happy.
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It's my happy place. So apparently, I'm a paw sniffer,
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and I'm not even ashamed. Actually, when it comes to my
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fur babies, I am absolutely a drama queen. People have said to
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me, "I would never spend that much money on the dog, and I'm
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like, "Then, don't! I'm not asking you to. We used to live
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up in the mountains, and Manna loves the snow. She would stay
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outside and play in it forever if I let her. So of course she
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had snow suits, not just one, and some of those snowsuits cost
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about as much as a high-end ski jackets for human. Was that
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ridiculous? Maybe, but she could play in the snow without
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freezing. She was so happy, and she looked fabulous. So
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everybody won, and in the summer time when we went. Mana always
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wore her coyote jacket. That thing cost about as much as a
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bulletproof jacket, but she's tiny. We lived where there were
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coyotes, and in my mind, there was absolutely no way I was
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going to let a coyote snatch my baby, not on my watch. Then
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there is her food. Manny's food probably costs more than mine
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every month. I research ingredients. I craft her
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recipes. I cook for her as though her life depends on it,
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because according to me, it absolutely does. Amana isn't
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even the only one benefiting from this situation. Hoku, Sora,
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and Haru-they have their own bedroom, a whole room. Emily
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says, "It's the cutest room in my house. I even made them a
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little opening in the door. It has cat ears on one side and
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tail on the other, and they left their room. Meanwhile, my adult
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human kids no longer have beach rooms in my house, but cats do.
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Sorry. And you know what?
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I used to feel like I had to explain some of these choices:
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why I spend what I spent, why I cook the way I cook, why I
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organize parts of my life around these little beings. Now, I
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really don't, because when it comes to my fur babies, I know
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what matters to me and to them. Although it took me a while to
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get there, and one of the things I used to worry about: dog
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friends. Does Mana need dog friends? Should she be playing
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with other dogs? Am I socializing her enough? Is she
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fitting in? Am I being socially correct with other dog mums? The
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funny thing is, if Manna was sitting in the rescue waiting to
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be adopted, I am pretty sure one of the recommendations at the
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top of her profile would be, "Would do best as the only dog
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in the household. That's Manna. She loves people and her cat
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brothers, dogs. She can take them or leave them. Mostly,
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leave them, like 98.7% of the time. But when she was younger,
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I didn't trust my intuition when it came to her. I thought there
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was something I was supposed to be doing differently. One of the
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first trainers I worked with really emphasized that Manna was
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behind on certain skills and needed more socialization. She
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needed to learn from the pack. I was her leader and her boss, so
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Mana was put together with a lot of other dogs. They were all big
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dogs too, and I wasn't there with her. When she came home,
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she wasn't herself. She seemed so small, shut down, almost like
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she was afraid to take up any space, and I remember looking at
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her and thinking, "This just doesn't feel right, but I still
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had that little voice in my head. Maybe I'm being
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overprotective. Maybe this is what she needs as a dog. Maybe
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I'm the problem. Maybe a good dog mom would make sure her dog
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knows how to be social with other dogs. So over time, we
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worked with several different trainers, and eventually we met
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Trevor. I call him the manna whisperer, and one day Trevor
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asked me a very simple question. He said, "Do you need manna to
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be friends with other dogs? And I swear, something just clever.
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Because suddenly I realized, oh, this isn't about Manna. This is
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about me. I was feeling guilty because Manna didn't have dog
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friends. I was worried that she wasn't fitting in, and somewhere
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underneath all of that, I think I was reflecting some of my own
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insecurity about not fitting in. I was asking Mina to fit into
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this picture I had in my head of what a happy, well-adjusted dog
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was supposed to look like, and Manet was basically saying,
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"Mummy, I'm so happy being alone with you. So I looked at Trevor
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and said, "Absolutely not! I do not need Manna to have dog
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friends. And what a relief that was, not because Manna never
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needs to know how to safely exist around other dogs. Of
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course she does, but she doesn't need to become a social
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butterfly just so I can feel like I'm doing dog motherhood
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correctly. She gets to be Manna, and I get to know Mana well
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enough to make choices for the dog who is actually right in
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front of me, not some imaginary dog I think I'm supposed to
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have. And something happened after that. I started trusting
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myself more, not just as her caretaker, as her mummy. I
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stopped asking quite so often, "What does everybody else think
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I should be doing? And I started asking, "What does mana need?
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Actually, something happened just the other day that made me
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realize how much I've changed. My neighbor has a mouth to prove
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too, and she asked me if I wanted to start walking together
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every day, make it a little dog mom's thing, and it was very
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sweet. But I said thank you, but no, thank you. And it wasn't
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personal at all. I see her walking her dog all the time,
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usually chatting with another person while they walk, and
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there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. For her, the
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walk may also be time to connect with a friend.
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That's lovely, but my walks with Manna-that's our time, which is
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ridiculous because I'm with her basically all the time, but
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apparently 23 and a half hours together is not enough. We still
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require quality time. But when Manna and I walk, I leave my
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phone at home. I talk to her. Yes, I talk to my dog, and yes,
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she understands me, right, manamana? Oh, Hatcher came to
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visit. Hi, Hatcher. And when she stops, I stop. When she wants to
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sniff something, I wait. Sometimes I'm curious about what
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she's smelling. I watch her, not let her explore, because I
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realize something. I'm not taking Manna out so I can get my
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walk in. I'm taking a walk with her, and those are two very
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different things. I don't need our walk to look like anybody
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else's walk. I don't need mana to have anybody else's social
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life, and I don't need our relationship to make sense to
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everybody else. We know what works for us, and these days,
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that's enough. And maybe that's really what changed. I stopped
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needing our relationship to look normal to somebody else, because
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trust me, I know how we look. I take Mana everywhere. I talk to
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her all day. I plan around her. I cook for her. I check her poo
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poo. I smell her feet. Apparently, we require private
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quality time, even though we are together 23 and a half hours a
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day. I know, and sometimes people use words like "too
15:06
attached. Maybe we are. Who cares? I mean, seriously, who
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decide how attached I'm allowed to be to the little being I
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adore So much, Mana is not just a dog to me. She never has been.
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She is the love of my life. She is my heart, and I'm absolutely
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delighted that we are this bonded. I know her, inside and
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out. I know when something feels different. I know the look on
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her face when she wants something. I know her sounds,
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her moods, her routines, her smile, and I know when she needs
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mummy, which is all the time, and she knows me too. She knows
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when I'm happy. She knows when I'm stressed. She knows when I'm
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sad. Sometimes I think she knows what I'm feeling before I do. If
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something isn't right with Manna, of course I feel it, and
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when something isn't right with me, she feels it too. That's us,
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that's our relationship, that's our normal, and our normal
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doesn't have to be everybody else's normal. Actually, please
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don't make it. Everybody else is normal. That we'll all be
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standing outside smelling our dogs' feet. Yeah, right, Mana.
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Oh, that could be kind of fun. No, never mind. Mana says she
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doesn't want dog friends? See, I've learned, Manna. Mummy
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learned, but there was something else I've learned too. For a
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long time, I thought loving Manna this much meant I needed
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to make sure I was doing everything right, the right
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training, the right socialization, the right food,
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the right choices, and somehow, somewhere along the way, I
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stopped trying so hard to beat the right kind of dogma, and I
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just became Manna's mommy. Perfectly imperfect, definitely
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not normal, probably a little ridiculous, but Manna loves her
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mommy, her wonderfully weird mom. I know her. I listen to
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her. I pay attention. I make mistakes. I learn, and I adore
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her with all my heart and soul, exactly the way I know how.
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Maybe that's why I don't feel embarrassed anymore about the
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ridiculous things I do, because when I look at the woman I
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become with Manna, she is crazy. But whatever, I really like her,
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because this woman, she loves without trying to be a cool
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dogma. She nurtures. She notices. She pays attention.
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She's curious. She stops when mana stops. She wants to know
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what manna is sniffing. She cooks. She protects. She worries
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sometimes way too much. She gets things wrong, changes her mind,
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learns, trusts herself a little more than she used to, and she
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gets ridiculously excited about somebody else's bow movement,
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and you know what? I think my fur babies have given me
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permission to soften, to play more, to care deeply without
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worrying so much about how it looks from the outside. Maybe
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even to be a little weird, okay, a lot weird, and I'm good with
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that. And maybe that's one of the unexpected gifts of loving
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them.
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They don't need us to be cool. They don't need us. To impress
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anybody, they don't care whether somebody thinks the snowsuit
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costs way too much, or whether the cats should really have
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their own bedroom, or whether Mummy smells their feet.
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Actually, they may have some concerns about that last one,
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but they let us love them, adore them completely, and somehow, in
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loving them that freely, maybe we learn to give ourselves a
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little more freedom too-freedom to love the way we live, freedom
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to build a life that feels right to us, freedom to trust what we
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know in our heart, freedom to stop explaining every little
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choice, and maybe freedom to like ourselves a little more,
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not because we're doing everything perfectly, not
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because everybody understands us, but because this life we
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built with them, this relationship, this love, feels
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like ours, and I think there's something really beautiful about
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that. Now I think it's time to ask of our babies what they
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would like us to know this week. Hopefully, it's not about poop.
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Okay, this week's card from my love messages from your pet
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oracle is, I trained you well. You absolutely did, Mana. I
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mean, I analyze your poo poo and peepee. I cook your meals. I buy
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your snowsuits. I stop when you stop. I wait while you sniff. I
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smell your paws and belly. You have done an excellent job, mana
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mana. And maybe that's exactly what mana would say. Pay
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attention to me, mummy. Listen to me. Trust what you know about
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me. Stop comparing me. Let me be who I am. And while you're at
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it, mummy, let yourself be who you are too. Okay, Menna, I've
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been trained. Well, my darling, I told you my secrets today, so
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now I want to hear yours. Tell me the ridiculous, the weird,
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and yes, the absolutely disgusting things you do because
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you adore your fur baby. What's that one thing you do that would
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make absolutely no sense to anyone else, but makes perfect
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sense to the two of you? I love to hear what you and your fur
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baby discovered together this week. Until then, take gentle
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care of yourself and your precious one, because your
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happiness matters.