Playing Fetch with a Blind Dog

A couple months ago I dogsat for a friend of a friend's blind dog.

Now, when I say blind, I don't mean cataracts-make-him-run-into-walls-sometimes or glaucoma-means-he-barks-at-his-own-shadow-on-occasion sort of blind. I mean both-eyes-surgically-removed blind.

When his owner went over care instructions with me, she said he loved to play fetch. I assumed she meant using a some sort of audio-guided technology like a beeping frisbee or a scent-based ball stuffed with some sort of strong-smelling treat.

But no, she meant regular ol' find a stick, throw it, bring it back, repeat fetch.

She said I didn't have to, but if I wanted to, he would love it. But because I don't have a fenced in yard and was afraid of traffic, I pretty much nixed the idea off the bat and opted for long walks and hikes instead.

One day, I took him to a trail where I could let him off leash. Within 2 minutes, he had found the perfect fetching stick and brought it to me. Clearly, she wasn't kidding.

So, I gave it a short, gentle toss not far up the trail. He ran and got it and brought it back so fast I could have sworn he could still see even without eyes.

I threw it again, a little farther. Same thing. We kept repeating, and I kept thinking eventually I would throw it so far he wouldn't be able to accurately hear where it had dropped and would lose it.

But nope, he would run almost right to where it had landed every time. On the rare occasion he didn't find it right away, he would sniff out the stick within a couple extra seconds, always finding the same stick every time, even when it landed among a pile of similar sticks.

I was truly amazed. This dog was "supposed to be handicap." Turns out, nobody told him that. He played fetch exactly like a normal dog.

That's when I realized: It was my limiting beliefs about him not having eyes that had held him back in my imagination. But that wasn't the reality. The fact that he didn't have eyes didn't slow him down AT ALL.

Why? Because he didn't have any self-limiting beliefs. He just wanted to play fetch. And he was going to do it with or without eyes.

Now, I'm sure after his surgery there was a transition period. But I'm also sure because he was so focused on the damn stick that it didn't take him long to adjust.

We humans could learn a lot from animals like Pancho.

We say we want something, but then we find all the reasons we need to stop us from going after it. In other words, we create an excuse.

What would happen if you stopped lying to yourself that you don't have time to paint anymore and decided to sit down for 15 minutes every night before bed and put brush to canvas? How long would it take to finish a painting?

What if you quit saying you're not ready to change careers yet because you don't have enough money saved up and instead made an actual budget that would allow you to do so? How many months, if you really buckled down, until you were able to make that move?

What if you shifted from wanting to lose weight but being too tired to wake up before work to deciding you were finally gonna release those extra 20 pounds to give you energy?

What if you stopped making excuses for why you can't have/do/be whatever you dream of right now and started creating a way?

Imagine how much closer to your dreams you could be at the end of the year if you stopped making excuses for why you can't and instead said yes. What's possible for you?

Leave a comment below on the "sticks" you plan to fetch for yourself ;)