When Your Dog Wants to Drive

This afternoon I enjoyed a speedy trip to the local library.  How cool & convenient it is to be able to simply go on line & request books that you have your eye on be sent to the closest branch geographically.  To be able to speed in & collect the books already set aside with your name on it is something that I appreciate. 

As I pulled up in what we jokingly call, our “dogmobile”, parked & jumped out, I saw a shadow in the driver’s seat in the car parked next to me.  The shadow turned out to be a dog sitting right behind the driver’s seat.  This struck me as funny as frankly it always does.  When I am out with our boys & we see a dog sitting behind a steering wheel, we cannot help but laugh & comment on how all dogs seem to want to drive.  Then, I will add to the boys, “perhaps if more dogs went to Mrs. Puff’s driving school then they would be driving.”  If you have kids & they have watched Sponge Bob Squarepants over the years, you may be thinking this too.  (ha! ha!)

When it comes to diabetes, it feels empowering to be in the driver’s seat or in other words managing it with best personal effort.  It is about telling ourselves what we can do.  I think of it as making decisions & choices that meet each of us at our level of needs.  What an awesome feeling knowing that if I want to have a treat, I can.  Just knowing that makes a difference.  Over time, I found that the “I can” thinking has resulted in my appetite leaning towards the healthier choices the majority of the time.  I have a feeling that if my thinking were to reverse & instead be, “I cannot have” thinking, I would want that sweet treat all the more.  If I get a genuine craving every once in a while, that is just fine.  The neat thing is that instead of wanting a whole chocolate bar, I love having one wee square of dark chocolate.  It is delicious & I have to say that I enjoy knowing that I can have a piece any time that I want.  In a sense, I have attended “Mrs. Puff’s driving school.”  That means that insulin can be matched up with the treat & I am in the driver’s seat.  Now if I choose to have foods that are not the most nutritious choices too often then “my engine” will not run as smoothly.  If we believe in maintaining and or preventative maintenance of our cars, then imagine how we could consider our bodies in the same light.  My choice is to feed my body the healthier foods the majority of the time so that it too will “run” well & consequently, I just plain feel better.  That makes the treat every so often even more delightful. 

It is still a hoot to see a dog behind a wheel. Keeping with the health, choices & doggy analogies for a moment more…we feed our goldie the most nutritious dog food to help her to live a healthy & long life.  That is our hope.  We want to give her the best possible chance at having a long & happy life.  Left to her own devices,  jokingly we will say that if she had thumbs she would eat absolutely anything that she could get her paws on.  We help her to make the healthiest choices therefore.  She receives treats yet they are not the main staple of her diet because we love her & want her with us for as long as possible.  It is about choices & we get to make them for ourselves.  It is a decision that I make each day about giving myself the best possible odds at having a healthier & longer life too. I like the odds better for myself when I eat in a healthy style & exercise.  If we are taking best possible care of our pets & cars & are convinced of the merit to that, then how about our own health?  It is cool that our cars & pets can remind us to best “maintain” ourselves. 

 Having a dog in the car next to us in parking lots  remind us that we are the drivers in our diabetes management may also seem a little funny.  I hope so.  The neat thing that I have found over the years is that often within humour wee nuggets of wisdom are there waiting too to be found.  Two paws up for that!

Smiles, Saundie J