Good things about having dogs

 

Spirit’s and ‘Nala’s puppyhood in the old flat shortly after we added Nala to our little pack

 

I don’t know where to begin when talking about how good it is to have dogs, but I have long wanted to write about it and recently got extra inspired after reading A Kindred Soul by Musings of an Aspie.

We have 2 dogs. In line with the policies of this blog, they’ll have Internet pseudo-names and will be known as ‘Spirit’ and ‘Nala’ online. Spirit because she is a free spirit, and Nala (named after Simba’s girlfriend in The Lion King) because there is something lion-like gracious, majestic and childish about Nala and the way she moves.

 
What the dogs do to the house*

The dogs spread a happy & easy going vibe in the house, so we look extra forward to being home when we’re out … not to mention the cheering, tail-wagging welcome committee that greets us when we open the door. The dogs are great fun on an everyday basis; and a play or cuddle with the dogs can lift almost any heavy mood.

Most of all, the dogs have transformed our home into a little community. We are not just a married couple any more, we are a little tribe with a culture that we shape, but which also shapes us and which’ evolution is not fully under our control. I guess having dogs is somewhat akin to having kids in that regard.

 
The dogs are therapeutic

Whenever I’m feeling down, I can easily make the dogs happy, and that tends to lift my mood too. Sometimes all the way up from ‘tired and de-motivated’ to ‘having fun’.

When I feel nerve-wrecked and overloaded (or whenever Nala needs a hug), Nala will lean on me and/or rest her body on my chest. Although it sometimes feel like my ribs are slowly bending and it is hard to breathe, Nala’s warm heavy softness and trust is one of the most soothing sensations I know when I’m stressed, anxious or in sensory overload mode – just the right impact at the right time. And she is always around, with her unconditional support and strong but simple needs.

I also learn a lot from observing the dogs and their pack dynamics every day. I learn about social dynamics and political games (dog politics is mainly about bones, but still), perspective taking, care and responsibility, about their unique personalities, about being open to another species’ very different type of mental operative system, about conflict management and many other things.

And the dogs keep us/me physically fit. And safe too… protecting the house against real and imaginary enemies.

 

 
Dogs are routine animals

All that said, one of the key aspects of having dogs has to do with rules, everyday structure and routines. Dogs cherish and need daily routines such as walks, feeding rituals, training, and just all the little things we do at certain times and which they know will happen. Routines and predictability give dogs a sense of knowing the world they live in and be prepared for what will happen. Dogs thrive when they know precisely what to do, and carry out the same sequences day after day with the same persons. Carrying out routines together is a bonding kind of communication; it conveys that ‘we are together’, ‘we belong here’.

It isn’t necessary to be as rules-oriented as I am with dogs and some may find it a bit extreme, but I like to have many little scripts for longer activities, such as walks, that break the activity into small steps and mark how far along we are in the process and what will happen next. It helps the dogs to know what to do (even if they sometimes do the opposite!), and it helps me to control two dogs that are actually so strong that they can pull me over the ground ‘like a sled’ if they forget I am there.

Below is an example of a sequence of little scripts embedded in a daily routine; namely the morning run on a route via bush firetracks. It may be boring to read, but it is fun to do due to the dogs’ infectious enthusiasm for every step in the process.

Blogging as Cognitive Behaviour Therapy

Social Anxiety, part 5

This post continues the series about Social Anxiety Disorders which started with The Zone of Normality and the fear of standing out , and presents some alternative Cognitive Behaviour Therapy-like approaches to overcoming social anxiety problems.

I have so far written about undertaking a few (almost) conventional CBT strategies. This post is about hybrid, inventive CBT-like strategies using blogging as a catalyst for overcoming social anxiety.

 
The Shyness Project

The Shyness Project by Brittany Wood is a great practical example of a Do It Yourself CBT-like strategy carried out, although Brittany doesn’t call it that. Brittany started her one-year blog project in January 2011 with a goal of overcoming a range of social anxiety problems within one year, progressively month by month. During that year she systematically worked through her anxiety problems by setting up and engaging in trigger-situations with real people and documenting her progress on her blog.

Brittany’s strategies are easy to imitate (and be inspired by), and neatly organised into the problem categories they target, such as Phone Phobia, Talking to Strangers, Dressing Confidently, Public Speaking and Make New Friends. Her blog contains a variety of musings about aspects of social anxiety and socialising, and include guest posts such as this one, and I can warmly recommend The Shyness Project as inspiration.

 

Image from this interview with Brittany in Psychology Today

 
Freelancing and blogging as a cure for phone phobia

One of the most effective things I have done to overcome phone phobia was to research and write a blog series about Telephobia. 

Worry Record Keeping

Social Anxiety, part 3

I mentioned in the first post in this somewhat old series* that I would write about personal experiences with specific Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) techniques against social anxiety.

The first CBT technique I learned was Worry Record keeping, which I infer is a Cognitive Restructuring technique. It works as follows:

After each experience of social anxiety, fill in a Worry Record form to sort of report the incident to yourself. The purpose is to analyse and expose destructive irrational thinking patterns to take away their power and learn and reinforce new, more constructive cognitive approaches.

Recorded aspects typically include date, duration (when did worrying start and finish in relation to the event), degree of anxiety on a scale, symptoms (tick off from a list), and descriptions of:

• Trigger event
• Worried thoughts
• Anxious behaviours

in relation to each incident of social anxiety.

 
How it worked for me.

In the Social Anxiety case stories, worries were verbalised along the lines of (for example) ‘He thinks I’m incompetent’. ‘I am sweating and loosing control; people can see how nervous I am and think I’m a looser’. ‘I look like a complete idiot’. So they all evolved around a strong need for social accept and a strong awareness of social competition with other people. Moreover they had clear, consistent triggers.

 

An easy life

‘You are living an easy life, aren’t you? You ain’t doing nothing!’

the old man said. I pass his house every day when I walk or run* with my dogs. When he and his dog are out in his front yard, I stop and talk, so my dogs get this beautiful rare chance to hang out with another dog that, albeit a bit cranky, doesn’t behave like an erratic maniac like many other dogs around here.

 

 
Most of what the old man says is difficult to hear, because his voice is like a soft, mumbling creek of linked words strayed with Aussie idioms, and garden noises in the surroundings zap out some of them too. However, I usually manage to pick up enough key words here and there to estimate what we’re talking about, and make friendly expressions and statements (one syllable is sufficient) every now and again to prove my participation in the conversation.

I like him, and I like listening to him.  He is a bit like my grand mother (R.I.P), and I enjoy seeing his joy about having someone to talk to, while my dogs have a great time relaxing in the grass and pestering their ‘friend’.

The above quote is one of the sentences that I did hear in full, and I’m pretty sure that’s what he said. Slightly insulted, I told him that I work as a research interviewer with variable hours, I ain’t ‘ain’t doing nothing’. ‘OK’, he said, and maybe something along the lines of ‘that sounds like a great job’.

Face to face interviewer job – Performance review

Image source: Muppet character found on Good Fun Mania

 
I have survived my second in-field evaluation / performance review for the interviewer job. It went surprisingly well. The first did too… so maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised anymore. I guess it means that I’m actually good at this job.

I just counted that I have done over 100 face to face interviews in private homes if I include the ones I did for my BA thesis and another student project back in the uni days. And I think I have the hang of it!

 
In-field evaluations of a face to face interviewer job…

The in-field interviewer performance evaluations take place as follows:

First, my supervisor emails me to say that the time is up for a new evaluation and asks for the address and time of my next interviews. Then we meet there & then, and she follows me around like a shadow, taking notes. She doesn’t interact with respondents but tries to be like a fly in the air*. And yes, it makes me nervous.