No Perfectionism Here

Or at least not the kind you'd expect

I’m sitting in the Denver airport, waiting to head back to California after a glorious week with Max. (Let me just say, if you’re going to New York, don’t miss the onion soup at Pastis). While in New York, I got to see a couple of Nicholberry Goldens (incredible!) and finally got to meet my agent’s Golden, Watson (such a good boy). It made being away from my dogs just a little bit easier.

One thing I’ve noticed is that when I meet other people’s dogs, or see Nicholberry dogs for the first time since Gotcha Day, the humans often apologize for their dog’s behavior. Somehow, people have confused me with a person who has perfect dogs, so I’d like to set the record straight.

My dogs are not perfect.

And that is perfectly okay with me.

My hope is that they are perfectly happy, perfectly balanced, and perfectly resilient. That is the only kind of perfection which I aim to achieve. In the process of this quest, I hope to teach them some basic rules for living with humans, such as please don’t jump on them, and please give them just a wee bit of space when they seem to be done petting you, and please don’t eat that chocolate torte on the kitchen counter.

And because I believe that dogs, like humans, achieve a measure of emotional regulation through self-control, I do think that there is tremendous value in helping every dog work towards the benchmarks of the AKC’s Canine Good Citizen Test.

But there is a big gap between CGC and perfection.