This is a tale of everything my dog has thought me with his absolutely unconditional love and ability to live in this moment, without a worry for tomorrow. It talks about the lessons learned in life from a dog. And it will teach you without a doubt why our dog is happier than you!

“A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than he loves himself.”
Josh Billings

“The better I get to know men, the more I find myself loving dogs.”
Charles de Gaulle

“Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.”
Roger Caras

Dogs Truly Are Our Best Friends

Anyone who has ever had a dog can relate themselves with at least one of these famous sayings about dogs. I can with all of them. I have had many dogs in my life and they have both thought me so much more than I ever gave them a credit for.

Some time ago I saw this movie from bright side (one of my favourite websites, a place full of inspirational stories) in my Facebook feed.

I watched it and it touched me greatly with it’s message. I stopped to think about everything my dog means to me and why he is so incredibly happy most of the time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_Tto7Z4TXY

I had a beautiful golden retriever. I loved her more than anything else in the whole world. I got her as a puppy when I was 20 years old and I did everything with her. She was always there for me when I needed her, she truly became part of me.

But years went by, I got older and so did she. I became one a mom and she was the most gentle dog you can imagine around the kids. They could poke her in the nose, pull her tail and she would just happily let them enjoying their annoying company.

Then came the sad day she was suddenly no longer with us, I was far away and could not get there in time. She died in my mothers arms. I cried and cried, there was no end for my sorrow. I thought I could never love any dog like I had loved her.

I couldn’t bear the thought of having an other dog, but we had several other pets. The children were particularly fond of our rabbits, but my daughter often spoke of a dog. But I closed off my heart and hardened my mind for her please, other pets would have to be enough!

Faith Decided Otherwise

Then one day I was visiting my best friend in Roskilde, Denmark. She is someone who has walked with me so many years in my life that she was more like a sister to me. Her beautiful female Stabij, rare Dutch dog breed, had just has had puppies 3 days earlier.

They were the size of my hand and they were still blind! They had a short silky, white and black fur. I was sitting there, watching them, when one of them suddenly started crawling toward my outstretched hand.

When the puppy reached it, he sniffed my hand, licked it and crawled around trying to suckle. After a moment he came to the conclusion there was no milk on offer and fall asleep on my hand. My heart melted and although I knew it was not going to be easy, he belonged to me and me to him.

The first years we full of love and joy, but we knew nothing of taking care of hunting dog spices, which caused some misery and many problems related to our already complicated lifestyle, which now had yet an other part of the puzzle, which we had to somehow fit in.

However I could never ever imagine parting with our stubborn, wild, energetic, playful little monster, the most loving and loyal dog imaginable.

Why Is My Dog Happier Than Me?

Returning now to the few weeks ago when I saw the movie about why dogs are generally happier  than humans, I decided to not only write this story, but also make my own movie about our bundle of joy!

His name is Muffit, after my childhood hero Muffit The Daggit, a robotic pet from Battlestar Galactica a science fiction series from1980’s! I still remember the day he died due to a fire in the series after rescuing lot of the crew members. He was a true hero and I cried myself a sleep for a whole week 🙁

However just like all beloved pets, Muffit has many names! He answers to the calls of at least the following:

Baby

Boy

Baby Boy

Baby Bear

Muffy

Muffi-bear

Muffi-fluffy

Muff-man

Curly Butt

Snooselie-Poes

Some of them are pretty funny, eh? Well how about this; We also made some songs about him. The most popular being song with the Batman tone:

NANA-NANA-NANA-NANA-NANA-NANA-NANA-MUFF-MAN!

Beside of 1000 cute little stories I could tell about him, I will leave that for an other time, he has also thought us so many life lessons, showing me how our pets can truly show us the way!

My Dog Is Happier Than Me Because He Takes Plenty Of Naps

Everyone knows that sleep is important. The rest, besides refreshing us, get rid of the toxins that accumulate in our brains. Without any sleep everyone will go crazy and it will finally lead to death.

Just a few badly slept nights and we all know the effects of sleep deprivation! We are irritable, have trouble of concentrating, experience memory problems and our reaction time, for instance in traffic, doubles.

So why do we always insist on sleeping too little? In the morning we can’t sleep in, because we need to go to work or take the kids to the school. In the evening we want to watch the late night movie and during the day there is always so much to do. Sleep simply has to wait!

Often even during our holidays we pack in so many activities, everything from meeting up with friends and taking early morning excursions that we go back to work just as exhausted as before.

Muffit, he knows sleep is important! He takes plenty of naps throughout the day, sleeping outside in the sun, soaking up the rays or snores loudly on the sofa. Besides this, he also sleeps at least 8h every night and 10h most nights!

Try to get him excited about the idea of going for a walk before 8am or after 10pm, no way! He will give you the look and just turn lazily around exposing his belly, inviting you to join him. An if you do, he happily cuddles next to you, excited for snoozing company.

My Dog Is Happier Than Me Because He Gets Plenty Of Exercise

We all know exercise is good for us. It helps out bodies maintain a healthy body mass and keeps our muscles in good condition. It helps to improve blood circulation and increases lung capacity! It also releases endorphins which in return make us happy!

So why do so many of us get very little to no daily exercise? We have become a generation of true coach potatoes, who take a car instead of walking or bicycling couple of kilometers. We have learned to use the elevator instead of the stairs and avoid physical work in any ways we can!

Muffit loves exercise. He is at his happiest when he is allowed to run around free. When he gets to chase after the birds and swim in the sea or the pond. He is happy to climb mountains and go hunting for the rabbits in the forest!

He knows exercise will keep him healthy and happy. He doesn’t care if the weather is bad or if it’s too hot, he is still burning with desire to go for a good run, simply because it makes him happy 🙂

My Dog Is Happier Than Me Because He Gives Plenty Of Love

Everyone knows that giving is receiving and the relationships are about give and take right? But somehow we have started to expect that we need to get love without giving anything back.

We spend our whole lives looking for love in all sorts of ways and places, not realizing that that we push love away with our own attitudes and bitterness.

Even when we build our friendships or our relationships we are thought to hold back, not to show our feelings too eagerly, to play games and keep the other part uncertain and in the dark of our hearts desires.

Muffit knows it’s a too way street. He gives his love freely, unconditionally and without asking anything back. He wants you to know he loves you and only you.

He cannot speak, but he goes into great lengths of showing his love to us every single day. The way he greets us when we arrive home, he missed us and is genuinely joyful to see us. The way he cuddles next to us. The way he licks our faces in the morning to wake us up. Not to forget the way he protects us against the evil mailman!

The list goes on and on, it’s the small things that make all the difference in the world. There is never any doubt in my mind, nor any other dog owners mind, that their dogs love them. In return, we love them too, with all our hearts!

My Dog Is Happier Than Me Because He Makes Plenty Of Discoveries

When we humans are born into this world, we start learning through discoveries. To our mom’s great annoyance we eat sand, we stick our fingers between the door hinges, we want to touch every animal and smell every flower.

But when we grow up, things start to loose their interest. We learn not to touch things or taste them with out tongue because we might get hurt or because our mother told us not to.

We loose our exploring nature and our ability to  use all our senses to discover the world around us. Things become dull and our ability to sense things fades due to lack of practice.

Muffit is always eager to discover new places! He uses his sight, hearing, sense of smell, touch and taste to examine everything that he encounters!

He sees the world through the eyes of a child, the world is one big wonderful place for him and he is happily spending his time to discover it all!

My Dog Is Happier Than Me Because He Enjoys Plenty Of New Sceneries

We humans tend nowadays to be too preoccupied with our gadgets, cameras, smart phones and laptops to really appreciate a beautiful scenery in front of us!

We sit on the beach, on top of the mountain or in the park, instead of looking at the beautiful scene in front of us, we take pictures to watch them later. Instead of enjoying the sunset by the lake, we concentrate on our social media messages.

When we go on vacation, we tell ourselves that the business cannot survive without us and we spend our days working instead of relaxing!

When we are driving in the car or travel in the train, we sit our faces glued to our e-book readers or game consoles, ignoring the beautiful fields and forests we are passing by.

Muffit doesn’t have any gadgets, well besides the mandatory ID chip he is carrying, nor does he care for any! When we drive with an open roof, he hangs his head out and looks at things passing by, enjoying the wind in his fur.

He stands at the beach staring at the play of the waves and the boats in the horizon. On top of the mountain he stares at the grazing cows and the beautiful clouds.

My Dog Is Happier Than Me Because He Loves Plenty Of Play

Children spend a lot of time playing, alone, together with other kids and with us adults. They are encourages to do it as besides teaching them things, it excites them and makes them happy!

That’s until the school starts. Then little by little, we are told to be adults and everyone knows that adults don’t play. Latest as teenager we stop playing all together due to peer pressure.

We are thought to be ashamed of our playful nature, but deep inside we miss the excitement of playing games! Some seek the excitement of play anyway and seek to escape in video and computer games. Role playing in all forms is popular part time for a lot of us.

It’s also common to find the excitement in sports. The enthusiasts enjoy the adrenaline rush and sense of achievement when they win and disappointment when they loose, either in individual or team activities.

Other seek the excitement in playing poker, casino games or sports gambling and unfortunately for the world peace, some seek out war games.

Muffit simply loves to play. He enjoys the thrill, the excitement, the adrenaline rush and is not afraid or ashamed to show it.  He wags his tail and barks in joy. He jumps, he catches, he pulls, he searches and he retrieves.

He play by himself, with other dogs and even other animals. He also specially love play with his humans, tolerating silly things we do to him. He makes every object he can get into his mouth his play thing for our great annoyance.

He invites others to play and is often rewarded by laughter and good mood from his whole pack. Sometimes when he is napping, he seem to be running, he lets our playful yelps and we are sure he’s dreaming of playing an awesome game.

My Dog Is Happier Than Me Because He Explores Plenty Of New Places

Some of us like to travel, explore and experience new places. However most of us prefer to stay home, happy to be within the familiar surroundings, amongst the people we love.

If we travel for business, we keep ourselves occupied with our work and don’t venture out. If we go for holidays, we tend to go to a place where we can meet up with people from the same country and of course eat and drink what we are used to at home. We have become creatures of habit.

Muffit seeks and finds the most incredible things everywhere he goes! Going to new place is his favorite thing in the whole world! Imagine all the new sounds and smells.

Going to new places for him means meeting new people and other dogs! It is the most exciting things for him and he greets everyone eagerly, always happy for some company.

He enjoys the leaves in the forest, the hedgehog he finds in the back of the garden, the bus stop on the walk, the ducks in the pond and the freshly fallen snow is always amazing!

My Dog Is Happier Than Me Because He Takes Plenty Of Time To Do What He Enjoys Most

We humans don’t spend enough time caring for ourselves doing things we truly enjoy. We have to take care of our jobs, our families and all the other responsibilities we have.

We want to take time for ourselves, to do the things we grave to do, but at the same time we feel guilty for doing so. We feel that relaxing and doing what we really want to do is a waste of time and are afraid of the others judging us as self-indulgent.

Muffit, he spends plenty of time doing what ever he wants to do. Let it be playing, sleeping, eating, discovering new things of just chilling out, chasing birds or squirrels, hanging out around us or sitting alone and staring into nothing.

He listens to the commands, but has never surrendered his own free will and does let you know if he is not happy for you interrupting him at his favorite activity! He is in no hurry anywhere, well except to get going for a walk. After all, it’s his life and he knows it.

My Dog Is Happier Than Me Because He Spends Plenty Of Time Being Himself

People always worry about something. Maybe it’s bills that need to be paid, car that needs to be repaired, children who are not doing well at school. Worrying fills most of our lives.

We also spend most of our time to pretend to be something we are not, worried that if people get to know us, they won’t like or accept us. We build walls around ourself to protect ourselves from getting hurt. We only dare to be ourselves when we are alone.

Muffit, he is always being himself. He doesn’t pretend to be a perfect dog just to please you, neither does he hide his love, his hate or any of his other emotions. He wants us to accept him and love him the way he is.

He has a way of balancing things which I admire, he lives in a moment, not worrying about tomorrow. He never seems to be too unhappy, even if he is upset for a moment, little attention gets him back to himself, a lovely and healthy, truly happy dog!

My Dog Shows Me The Way

How much happier will I be, if I learn to live my life according the same philosophy as my dog? I am willing to give it a go, the question is, are you?

ॐ Don’t Worry, Be Happy,