My husband and I have a 10-year-old Scottish Terrier named Kaylie. For about 9 of those years she was the queen of the house; the only pet besides tropical fish allowed in the house. But she now shares the house with a wayward cat named Simon that chose our house as his new home last summer and with a young Australian Shepherd/Collie mix we adopted earlier this year, named Brownie by a previous owner.
Kaylie has responded very well to her new companions, and what I’ve been most impressed by is that she freely shares her food and water dishes with Brownie. She’s never tried to protect her food, which is available at all times free choice, or snapped or growled at him around the food dish. And in turn, Brownie has learned from her modeling and our verbal coaching to behave the same way, to relax and know he will always have an abundance of food. They seem completely relaxed and calm, when it comes to their dog food at least, trusting there will always be plenty, and waiting patiently for their turn.
This behavior is inspirational to me as a model for living. I’ve read that over 90% of disease is stress-related. How much of that stress is self-inflicted? And how much of that self-inflicted stress, at its core, is based on a sense of scarcity, a need to protect what we have, to make sure we have enough? When do we have enough? And how much stress could we remove from our lives if we were able to adopt an attitude of abundance, that there is plenty to go around?