It has been a wicked weekend. I ran all over yesterday and today has turned into our own little version of Man vs. Wild. Personally I sort of think the best we can hope for is a draw!
Wild in our case is the puppygirls. They are channeling the Beastie Baby aka Houdini Dog. The girls have escaped twice today. They escaped twice last week, too.
My husband is a bit distraught. He thought he had built the Alcatraz of dog pens. Oops.
We have one neighbor who finds it amusing. She coos over the girls and gives them treats when they escape to her house.
Another neighbor is up in arms. What are we going to DO about this?
Well, we plug the holes as the girls find them. We are watching them more carefully. The pups are seven months old and this is all a work in progress. Be patient with us. You don’t always get things right the first time.
Patience is a virtue I often think I lack. Yesterday, waiting for the ‘Nerd Corps’ guy to do his magic, I was all over the place. But often you just have to wait for things in their own, good time. To use an old cliche, “Rome wasn’t built in a day”.
St Francis de Sales is quoted as saying “Be patient with everyone but above all with yourself…do not be disheartened with your imperfections but always rise up with fresh courage.” Wise man, Francis.
I was looking for articles written by psychologists and quoting research. What I found were pastors quoting saints. Not the usual fare of these pages but what the hey. Saints were leading and advising before the discipline of psychology was ever thought of.
As I said, I am not a patient woman. I have high standards for myself. I need to be active and independent. Therefore whenever things don’t come together like they ‘should’, whenever I cannot do what I want to do because of something like vision loss, I am upset. I want to do what I want to do!
It would appear coping with vision loss is rather like training puppies. It doesn’t matter you want results NOW. It doesn’t matter how upset you are with the situation. Things need time to develop and they will resolve in their own good time.
One of these days the girls will be dogs instead of puppies and they won’t want to wander and explore as much. One day my husband will find all the vulnerable spots in the fence and plug them…and one day we will learn to be just as efficient with vision loss as we were without vision loss.
…but that day is not today. In the meantime, be patient with everyone but above all with yourself. Rome wasn’t built in a day.