Even though I am home all day. I do spend time working on my website, blog, forum and many other things. I do get stressed for many reasons. As my foot is healing from my surgery I have begun to try to exercise it more and more. One evening when I needed a quiet place to take care of a phone call, I walked out on my back porch, through the first gate and out into my yard with my dogs. I took a long look around for all of the toys they have in the back yard with little luck. So, I then moved to the back pasture searching through those 2 acres by scanning it over.

Even though I couldn't walk all of it, I was able to find a few of their toys in order to play fetch. Then I noticed something. I had been outside in the yard for almost 20 minutes and my puppy had yet to jump on me or try to pull the bottom of my shirt down. All of my dogs were walking with me, in pack order, with me in front. They were calm and extremely secure in their atmosphere. They love for us to come into the pasture with them and walk. Once I finished checking out the areas where I planted some flowers and checked out my young Weeping Willow trees, all the dogs came up for me to pet them, one by one and then they were off towards the barn to show me all the things they do during the day when they are outside.

They were so proud of the things they had done. Places where their toys were hidden, interesting things they had found in the back pasture (no doubt by digging somewhere), how high they could climb in the barn that my children turned into a half pipe, and most importantly to them, the hedge in the back of the pasture where they had spent time chasing rabbits. It took me back to when my children were little and they couldn't wait to show me everything they did in school or at daycare. I felt a very different part of my heart open up to dogs.

I had always looked at my dogs as part of my family. They are treated well. They are in and out all day long, and sleep inside at night. They share Momma's lap anytime they want, but not until that moment, did I truly realize just how special a place they held in my heart. I know I am humanizing all the things that the dogs did. They were just wanting to play with me by inviting to be part of all of those activities, but I make sure that every evening, after dinner is done, dishes are up and all the chores of the house are done, I take the time to walk just a little bit in my dogs world. After all, we spend so much time asking them to conform to our rules, maybe I should spend a little of my time conforming to theirs.