We have had a dog for almost as long as we have been married and for about 3 minutes less than that time my wife has been working on me to get another. One mental Doberman flying around the house, stealing socks, intimidating visitors and cowering in fear from the vacuum cleaner doesn’t appear to be enough, she wants two. The drip-drip effect finally caused me to cave in recently and acquiesce to her request and so the search began.

We eventually settled on a breeder in the north of Florida and as luck would have it they had a litter due in May with pups released about 8 weeks later in late July. We had numerous questions about the parents, vet care and also about ear cropping. Personally I hate to see Dobie’s with their ears cropped. I think it makes them look menacing and slightly Vulcanlike and it doesn’t appear to achieve anything useful other than maybe for sharpening up your deck quoits tossing skills in times of extreme boredom.

There were a number of e-mails backwards and forwards and I think it’s fair to say the breeders were curt and professional with their replies. No answer was longer than needed and there certainly wasn’t any social discourse.

I had an e-mail back yesterday after requesting further information. It was one line long advising that pups weren’t cropped until 7 to 8 weeks and they knew we didn’t want the little fella sans ears anyway.

I forwarded onto my wife and soon got an unhappy reply from her. She asked me whether I had visions of the lady letting out a huge sigh as she wrote the letter and saying ‘Whateeever. Do we look like complete morons?’

The problem is, that’s exactly what had crossed my mind for a short while too. I’d buried the thought quickly though because I knew it wasn’t based on anything other than a false reality I had created inside my own head. The lady may be a lovely person that just hates writing e-mails, she may have to do 250 replies per day and has to keep them short to avoid RSI, or she may have acquired the social skills of the puppies she breeds. I had absolutely no way of knowing from a few short lines of text, which if any of those things, were true.

The fact is I look at life through a lens. I delete, generalize and distort information and put my own spin on it just like you and everybody else does. When information is missing such as knowing what this lady I have never met was truly thinking, my overactive mind searches for similar events and situations to bridge the gap. Frequently it will fail to do this accurately, but still leave me with a sense of thinking I know what the deal is, when in reality I have less idea than the dog currently napping on my bed.

As humans we don’t stop jumping to conclusions and reading between the lines with the more obvious things such as e-mails either. We’ll give imagined meaning to the dark stare the stranger gives us, the late arrival of a friend for a meeting and the phone line that goes dead when we answer in front of our spouse. Occasionally if we’re in a good mood we’ll put a positive spin on these events, but more often than not we’ll dream up some negative scenario that only helps to make us feel bad.

The really weird thing about this, is that it doesn’t seem to matter how often we slip-up and get it wrong, we insist on making the same mistakes again and again. Yes, I got THAT situation wrong, but THIS one is different, I just know it.

So how do you stop yourself from diving in and making a horse’s ass of yourself? It isn’t rocket science, brain surgery or even 2nd grader math, but it does take patience and a desire to change. If you have neither of those you’re probably in the wrong place at the wrong time but I hope you enjoyed the cute puppy photos.

Firstly, draw breath. Resist that initial urge to open your mouth and insert your foot. I know it’s tempting I’ve done it myself hundreds of times, but a simple 2 or 3 seconds or 2 or 3 minutes pause in the case of an e-mail may be all you need to realize that your perception may be wrong. Let your mind clear, your fists unclench and your veins stop throbbing.

Knowing my track record and if you’re a regular here you’re probably way ahead of me with what I’m about to say next, but I’m going to say it anyway because it bears repetition.

Ask yourself some different more empowering questions. Instead of the usual stuff designed to increase your blood pressure like “How dare he behave like that?” “Who does he think he’s talking to?” or “Is that weirdo staring at my chest?” Try stuff like “Wow, I wonder what his story is?” “What could I be missing here?” or “That’s an interesting way of looking at things”

By asking questions like that you will change your state from one of self-righteous indignation to one of curiosity. I know curiosity killed the cat but it probably wont kill you and being in a state like that is hands down better than the alternative.

PS Today we got a lengthy e-mail from the breeders with an update and some photos (the group one at the top was one), so it seems our initial assessment was wrong. Amazing, huh?