My 2021 Resolution - Be More Dog

It is 7.30am on a wet and dreary January day. I am contemplating getting out of bed and preparing for the day ahead, not really wanting to move from the cosy comfort of my nest beneath the duvet but knowing that I really ought to.

Beside me is a sprawl of soft white fur, actually, it is wedged against my side forcing me towards the wall and defying my attempts to move it. My arm is gently wrapped around the solid little lump because she insists. If I attempt to retrieve my arm, I am delicately tapped with a paw to remind me I was not supposed to stop cuddling her.

This is Sparrow my cocker spaniel, a solid little dog of muscle and joy that prefers nothing more than a long lie-in, followed by as much activity as she can cram into the day.

As I lie there facing the dawn of a new year, wondering about the many things I have planned for the months to come – early mornings, long hours of work, regular exhaustion headaches – it occurs to me that I have this ‘life-thing’ all wrong. I wake each day with a mild pang of horror that it is actually morning again, grimace as I open my eyes and contemplate the weather, then drag myself into the day kicking and screaming.

Usually by 10am I am functional as a human being, capable of work and enjoying what I do – I did pick to be a writer after all. Then there is the slow rise through frenetic energetic work, to the burnout phase of the day when brain and body is crying out to rest but has to compromise with sugar and caffeine. At last there is the evening where, conversely, despite being at last able to switch off, I no longer can. I keep thinking of things to do and resisting doing them causes this twitchiness inside. Finally, there is bed and hopes of sleep for my exhausted brain, except now I am wide awake and the hours run by as if there was no stopping them and before long it will be morning again.

Every year, as I reach 31 December and contemplate the future, I promise myself I am not going to trap myself in the same cycle of overwork and stress. I am going to learn how to sleep properly and refreshingly. I shall find a way to relax and I won’t burden my day with a hundred tasks and then wonder how it is I cannot finish them all.

That has been my New Year resolution for several years now, and yet almost immediately I awake into a fresh year I fall straight back into the same old habits. Before the first week is over, I am tired and grumpy, feeling the strain of many hours before a computer screen and wondering why other people seem to have so much more energy than me.

The problem is I make a promise to myself, but I fail to have a strategy to back it up. I just sort of assume I shall figure out how not to make the same mistakes as I go along, and naturally that fails to work.

That was why this year, looking at the fluff ball resting beside me in deep contentment, I decided on a new strategy for my New Year Resolution. I am going to be more dog. Specifically, I am going to be more spaniel.

What I admire in my spaniel is that everything she does, she does wholeheartedly, giving 100% of herself into whatever activity of the moment she is engaged in. If she is asleep, she is utterly asleep, flopped onto her back, legs in the air, head upside down and belly rising in deep, relaxing breaths.

When she is awake, she is utterly awake. There is a smile on her face, a spring in her step. She is ready for action and adventure. She is not heading into the day with trepidation, but with enthusiasm. She has no expectations at all for the day ahead, she is content to let it just happen.

She doesn’t do early mornings. If the sun is not up yet, she is not convinced we should be getting out of a warm bed. The only thing that can persuade her to be up before dawn is breakfast, but even that is only a temporary fix and she swiftly retreats back to bed and snuggles up once more. I am certain she would prefer breakfast in bed.

That is not to suppose Sparrow is lazy. Quite the opposite. Once the day has dawned and she is ready to go there is no stopping her. A two-hour beach walk is attacked with full energy, blasting across sand, barking at seagulls, darting in and out of the sea. Back home a quick twenty-minute catnap (or is that dog-nap?) is all that is needed before she is good to go again. Throughout the day she is busy, busy, busy.

Everything is a source of wonder and curiosity – a scrap of toast fallen beneath the couch is entertainment for a good half hour. Studying the antics of the pigeons in the garden is a source of wonder and excitement. If she is looking for a slightly calmer activity, she can always sit on the back of the couch, watching out of the window, ears pricking at passers-by as she decides whether to bark or not. A trip in the car is cause for deep delight and furious tail wagging, it might end in the pet shop, or at the beach again, or maybe somewhere new for a walk? Occasional trips to the vet do not dent her eternal optimism that a car trip is a sign of good things to come.

Food, of course, features highly in her daily enthusiasm. Seeking new ways of obtaining food (especially the sort she is not supposed to have) is an endless journey of intrigue and exploration. Having mastered the ability to surmount nearly every surface in the house and steal whatever happens to be there – it is not stealing, says Sparrow, it is repurposing! – new, inventive ways of storing food have had to be devised. These, in turn, are merely a puzzle to be solved and a new form of entertainment.

Which brings us to the kitchen bin. A place of enticing smells and forbidden secrets. Sparrow has figured out the mechanics of every bin that has been brought into the house. The pedal bin, the flip lid, the push button. Today a container of water sits on the top of the bin as a means of keeping her out (it was originally the doggy water container for the car until it went a bit green inside) and she is even working her way around this. She is also very quick to realise when someone has forgotten to weigh down the bin. Well, wouldn’t you be when the promise of what awaits inside is so glorious?

This is Sparrow and while I am not about to start bin diving, I look into her brown eyes and smile at her perpetual joy and I realise I want to be more like that. I want to wake up excited to be alive, with hope and anticipation for the day ahead. I want to stretch out in my bed and face the day with a deep contented sigh, glad to be awake once more.

I want to go through the day without trepidation, taking each moment as it comes, enjoying whatever I am doing in the immediate moment without thinking about what happened half an hour ago, or what I have to do later on. I want to be here. Now.

I want to see the world with wonder and curiosity, even the things I have seen a thousand times before, I want to be able to find a new interest in, as if I am seeing them for the first time. It means taking nothing for granted and being elated to discover that the thing I liked so much yesterday is still here today.

I think the biggest life lesson I take from the wisdom of my spaniel is that life is so much better when you appreciate everything in your existence, whether it is big or small. It is appreciating that you have breakfast today, and that the bed is still soft and cosy when you want it. It is appreciating just being with gladness. Finding pleasure in each mundane moment of life rather than just dismissing it as the thing we have done a hundred times before.

I am not entirely sure how to achieve this wonder and Sparrow lacks the ability to articulate into words how she goes about each day with such joie de vivre, but I am certainly going to try. Maybe I shall fail, or maybe this is the resolution that will stick and really change my life.

Well, at least it is better than another diet I shall break by 12 January.