Lesson from a four-legged friend

I've decided I rather like having a dog to come home to. Although my wife and kids are usually pretty consistent about hellos and goodbyes - my wife believes in making these moments special - there are times when the only greeter at the door has four legs and a soggy Schnauzer beard. When everyone in the house is too busy to get to the door, I can always count on our silver-furred hellion to attack the door until I can get it open. In the truest guard dog tradition, he'll bark and howl until he realizes it's me. Then he'll bore in, nubbin-of-a-tail wagging madly as he buries his head in my chest and snorts repeatedly.

I'm not quite sure what he hopes to accomplish in the process. I can hear all manner of sniffing going on, and all I can come up with is he's following his instinctive hunting dog's DNA as he tries to figure out where I've been, what I've done and who I've done it with.

Before long, I'll have to get on the floor because that just seems to make it so much easier to enjoy this wiggling ball of fur. It's always the same, and it never gets old. I think it's the unconditional nature of it all that makes moments like this worth holding on to. He'll be there, drooling and happy, no matter what kind of day he or I had. He doesn't temper his excitement for anything - the world revolves around the two of us for those few first moments on reconnectedness. He's happy simply because we're together.

I keep thinking there's a lesson here, and all I need to do is listen to him a little more closely. I think I need to be a little more like him - unconditional, in the moment, simply happy to be together, and to simply be - whoever I'm with.

Good dog, isn't he?