In my book, Clever Dog: Life Lessons from Man's Best Friend, I discussed the concept of adopting the greatest elements of the canine personality to improve the way we think, work and interact.
It seems the concept is not lost on US talk show queen Oprah Winfrey, who recently said:
"Dogs are my favourite role models. I want to work like a dog, doing what I was born to do with joy and purpose. I want to play like a dog, with total, jolly abandon. I want to love like a dog, with unabashed devotion and complete lack of concern about what people do for a living, how much money they have, or how much they weigh. The fact that we still live with dogs, even when we don't have to herd or hunt our dinner, gives me hope for humans and canines alike."
The whole concept for my book came from a small passage in Dale Carnegie's self help bible; How to Win Friends and Influence People, where the legendary author talked about the value of observing how a dog wins friends with the simple wag of his tail.
This lead me to thinking about how my own dogs manage to win so many friends, deal with stressful situations and show incredible patience in the face of overwhelming temptation to lose their temper.
I tried to change my thinking in certain circumstances by adopting the position of 'what would my dog do here?'.
Admittedly it doesn't work all the time – after all, dogs do some things that we'd consider pretty unacceptable in certain social situations (need I say more?) but overall it's a great tool when trying to decide on the best course of action in trying to achieve a desired outcome.
If you want to read more, take a look here…
Something interesting to read: why do dogs bark?
