writing

Setting Boundaries: life lessons from my dog

| Jess

When I rescued my dog Peanut four and a half years ago, I had all of these ideas of what our life together would look like. I imagined her sitting at my feet as I worked away on the patio of a coffee shop or attended a dog-friendly happy hour. I pictured Saturday trips to the dog park and a stop by the farmer’s market on the way home.

The reality of life with Peanut has turned out to be much different.

Peanut is a medium-sized dog with a huge personality and a lot of love to give. She enjoys protecting our house, eating snacks from the kitchen, hunting for what I refer to as “ground snacks” – aka trash we find out and about that she thinks could be a great treat, loving her favorite humans and playing with her very small circle of dog friends.

She was born in a shelter in Mazatlan, Mexico after her mom was picked up pregnant off the streets. The shelter where she spent the first year of her life has really great volunteers that love and care for the dogs well. However, they just have so. many. dogs. I believe that Pea probably had some issues with other dogs there. When she first moved in with me, she would eat her food in 45 seconds flat which led me to believe she had to fight for food and anything else she wanted in her former home.

They say with rescues it takes 3 days for them to calm down from the foster to adoption transition, 3 weeks for them to fully adjust to their new home and 3 months for them to understand that this is their forever home. Which – SIDE NOTE: if you’re going to rescue a dog THINK ABOUT IT LONG AND HARD BECAUSE HOW DARE THESE PEOPLE BRING THESE BABIES BACK TO THEIR SHELTERS.

Pea was no different. Once she started to get comfortable with me and I got to know her we created a routine and ground rules that work for us.

As I started to take Pea out and about, I quickly learned that her trust of me does not extend to the broader world. She would growl and bark at new dogs which made dog parks and group training nearly impossible. It took her months to be able to calmly interact with her aforementioned small circle of canine companions.

With these interactions, I started to notice something. The amount of people who misunderstand my dog is immeasurable. When she gets reactive and barks or growls and I try to calm her down, the looks I often receive are intense. If those looks could kill, a ghost one thousand times over would be writing these words.

Initially, I would apologize, shrink into myself, try to move us along or completely change our course of travel. Removing us from the situation and getting those judgmental eyes off of us was my number one priority. And that worked…for a while.

Fast forward some months and we found ourselves in a situation we couldn’t just escape from. I took Pea out for an evening stroll around our building. Along the way, we encountered two off leash dogs. Pea made eye contact with the pair, immediately felt anxious and unsafe and she growled. That triggered the dogs to not only growl back but charge at us. What resulted was me in the middle of three dogs absolutely trying to tear each other apart.

Thankfully, the owner of the dogs was responsive and apologetic. No one got hurt. However, I let him have it. I don’t think I ever yelled that loudly at someone I barely knew. That night, something in me clicked and I knew something had to change. When you find yourself in potentially life or death situations, things shift.

After that night, I began to research more and educate myself on dog reactivity. I won’t proclaim to be an expert but the biggest takeaway I learned was – I am my dog’s voice and advocate. I am the one that has to communicate what she cannot.

soul dog shit

A couple years later, we found ourselves in a similar situation with a different pair of dogs except much more serious. If I thought the first incident was life or death, I had no idea how serious it could get. Thankfully, again, no one was hurt. This new situation was much more tense and took much longer to resolve. Looking back I see it as my final test in graduating from the Universe’s course curated especially for me – Boundaries and Advocacy 101.

And was it ever. Every single time I wanted to be the one to smooth things over first, I stopped and reminded myself that this is not how we behave now. I didn’t want to be a person that people could count on to make amends first (if i was not at fault). I wanted to be the strong person that I am inwardly as well as outwardly. I truly made “Do no harm, Take no shit” my motto at that point in my life. It was tough but it was so rewarding.

I’ve seen the benefit of boundaries and self advocacy in the years since both of those incidents. I’m a much stronger person now and I’m no longer afraid to speak up if I need to. I sleep better at night and the anxiety I have leaving the house with Pea has decreased immensely. This has translated into my personal life as well. I no longer have a full blown anxiety attack if I need to hold my boundaries. I just hold them.

I won’t sit here and tell you my comfortability with all of this came over night. It took practice and it took understanding a couple of things. The first – knowing that I am allowed to take up the space I do. I wasn’t just put on this Earth to shrink smaller than my 5’1″ stature. Second – if I didn’t speak up for Pea who was going to? Same goes for me. If I don’t speak up for myself – who is going to?

It’s been said time and again that when you start holding boundaries and sticking up for yourself, it’s going to make people uncomfortable. In my experience, that is very accurate. The people who are used to you letting things slide will be all sorts of annoyed and confused when you put an end to it. As Mel Robbins says, “Let Them”.

If you have people pleaser tendencies coupled with anxiety like me, it can be hard to take steps to create and enforce boundaries. It can seem like it’s just easier to let everything slide. To just “get over it.” But I’m here to tell you, it’s so much more peaceful on the other side of all this. Nightly, I can get into bed with my dog and know that I did everything I could to protect my peace and hold our boundaries that day.

Do I still care what certain people think? Absolutely. Do I also know that I’m doing what I need to give me and Pea the best life? Without a doubt.

Who knew one of my greatest life lessons would come from a dog?

i met my younger self for coffee

| Jess

Currently, there is a trend going around on Tik Tok entitled “I Met My Younger Self For Coffee…” The user then utilizes text or a voiceover to discuss the differences in the “two people” who are meeting. Expectations, realities, disappointments, unexpected life turns – it’s all rather introspective. And it makes me sick. I had to participate.

My first question before we get started is – what age of mine would show up for coffee? The girl I was seventeen, fifteen, twelve or even five years ago (on the verge of the pandemic – a critical age for us all) is not the same as the others or even the woman/girl I am now. I still have a hard time calling myself a woman. As far as I’m concerned, in my head, I’m forever 21 and nowhere near ready for adulthood.

While I could offer myself at any of these ages some very sound pieces of advice, I always visit 21 year old, 2013 version of me in my head. The music, the fashion, the vibes…they always get me.

She arrives five minutes late while I sat in the car for 10 minutes, painfully early thanks to the anxiety and ADHD I found as an adult.

We’re both wearing black tops, jean shorts and Vans – no shock there. Although, I will have to let her know there was a period of time where we detoured away from this aesthetic. And we are very glad to be back.

Her hair is curlier and more effortless than mine – the benefit of youth and the fact that no damaging chemicals have touched those locks yet. She’s walked in with wired ear buds firmly in place, I know she has a perfectly curated playlist for walking to the coffee shop. An activity I haven’t found the time for lately.

She was…something. So young, so full of life and hope yet no stranger to adversity and heartbreak. She thought she had it all figured out.

I don’t think she had much of a plan beyond college graduation and even that milestone didn’t feel like it was actually attainable. I know she was having so much fun in college at that point in time that graduation was not something to look forward to. She didn’t want those days to end.

She had been on a study abroad and her first trip out of the country during the summer where she learned so much about the world and the fact that she had so much more to learn. She was settling into a new living situation in a house that she wasn’t quite sure was haunted (spoiler alert it was) with two girls she would consider more social friends, her newest friend (who would become her best friend) down the road and her closest guy friends right next door. They even provided a dog – they really were all set in their corner of the world.

While she wasn’t thinking beyond graduation, she was thinking towards the future. She was falling in love quite possibly for the first time and that had her mind spinning and her pens running dry with as much writing as she’d been doing. I still have those journals safely in my desk – some memories too full of longing to revisit.

She’s thrilled that we have our own dog, have been to countless music festivals and concerts and have a decent long-standing career. The career point is poignant as we tended to job-hop before we found this gig. Although she had no idea where she would go after college, she is shocked to hear we live in Vegas. Disappointment crosses her face to learn that we still haven’t lived in Boston and that boy she was in love with is nowhere to be found.

She notes that I look tired, a little stressed and definitely burnt out. That I look unsettled, anxious and like I have somewhere to be. That I look like I’m running out of time. She reminds me I still have time and nothing is permanent. I breathe a sigh of relief and tell her I’m going to need that as a constant reminder. If I’d heard that months earlier, I would have rolled my eyes and not welcomed the youthful advice. While she is still young and still has no idea what the real world actually contains, she is no way wrong.

As I look at the girl on the verge of some major life changes, I feel the need to protect her from them. But I can’t. All I can do is guide her in the way I wish I would have been guided. A thought crosses my mind, perhaps this version of me has always been there to guide her – that whole time/quantum physics thing. I’ll let someone more scientifically inclined try to explain it for me.

I tell her to savor this time in her life. Take the photos, spend time with the friends and really embrace the whole experience. I tell her that this time in her life is one I look back on fondly and wish frequently I could revisit even for a weekend – but only specific weekends and not all the time.

As we part ways I hope she takes some advice with her and I hope she believes me when I tell her she will make it through the most difficult parts of her 20s and early 30s. The reminders of a young life so full of optimism and hope are what I’m taking with me. That life is long but also short and I absolutely must do exactly what I want with mine. Most importantly, I’m not late at all. In fact, I may just be right on time.