SHAKE hands! people tell my dog while bending over to pet it, “Shake hands!” they shout as my huge fellow looks blankly at them. “Doesn’t your dog know to shake hands?” they ask looking disgustedly at me. “No!” I tell them.
“But all dogs shake hands!” “Why should he, when he doesn’t know why he’s doing it?” I ask and they look at me and shake their heads.
No, I’ve not taught my German- Shepherd to shake hands, or ‘Give paw’, as some tell him to do, but I’ve trained him to know his name and he comes when he’s called and knows the other rules of the house, which is enough for me. He showers love on my family and lives without fear.
He is not part of my collection, he is part of my home and I want him to enjoy his dog’s life to the fullest.Life is to be lived isn’t it? No excuses.
No reservations. No holding back. An enchanting story about violinist Fritz Kreisler tells how he once came across a beautiful instrument he wanted to acquire. When he finally raised the money for the violin, he returned to buy it and learned that it had already been sold to a collector.
He went to the new owner’s home in order to try to persuade him to sell the violin. But the collector said it was one of his prized possessions and he could not let it go.
The disappointed Kreisler turned to leave, but then asked a favor. “May I play the instrument once more before it is consigned to silence?”
Permission was granted and the great musician began to play. The violin sang out a quality of music so beautiful that the collector himself could only listen in wonderment. “I have no right to keep that to myself,” he said after the musician finished. “The violin is yours, Mr. Kreisler. Take it into world, and let people hear it.”
How many of us are like that collector, we get married to talented woman, but hide her within the walls of our house, making her our collectors item when she could make beautiful music with her many talents? We marry of our daughter before she can develop into an individual! We train our sons to jump and sit and stand at our command and make them worse than pet dogs!
A very close friend of mine was staying with me the other day, when he heard his son had banged up his car: Instead of flying into a rage, or flying back home he used the incident as an exercise to build his son up, guiding him a bit on how to handle police and insurance, but otherwise allowing the boy to handle issue, and his son never let him down.
It took tremendous patience on my friend’s part but he made a man out of his boy. Its our job to help our violins make good music not train them to shake hands or give paw..!
