Encouragement - it takes a dog, by Doug McVadon
Encouragement, that’s what I get from my dog every morning. Go ahead and get up, I can hardly wait, she says with her tongue. She has a way of licking my chin; cheek and ear that makes me feel devoured but not threatened. And then she usually slips in that deft little bite on the top of my ear, too gentle to properly be called a bite, more of a love nip that she slips in while I am busy doing my combination laugh-cringe-try-to-get-away move. It is an oral assault she mounts against my face, and finally I have to grab her head and push it gently away. Go ahead and get up, it’ll be great , her eager eyes say. The root of encouragement is courage. The courage to face the day. Why do I need that? And from a canine! Not even of my species and she somehow counteracts this dreadful weight of knowledge that wakes me up and makes me discouraged. It takes my courage away just to wake up into a world where cartoonists get assassinated for their political views and I know I am going to die with