Know Your Dog’s True Nature - The Earth Dog

      

By Elizabeth Anne Johnson

Earth Dogs are the quintessential caregivers. Kind, gentle, brave, abundantly patient, and a bit chubby. The perfect kid-loving family dog. Earth Dogs are routine based by nature and have amazingly accurate internal clocks. They are easy-going, love everyone, love touch, comfort, genuine praise, and of course, food.  Earth is the center of all life. It is supportive in every way. It supports the roots and growth of billions of trees, plants, animals, and people. It creates the promise of Fire and sustenance. Earth holds Water and creates flow and places of deep calmness, holding space for many ancient creatures, giving life to all inhabitants. Earth provides us with fresh air to breath and precious metals to create, innovate, and admire. Earth holds community. Everything comes from the support of Earth. Earth element dogs are the unsung heroes of the dog world. They are always there for us—supportive, hardworking, courageous, patient, caring, and nurturing. They give us the love of necessity, the deep love of a mother, a caregiver. They treat everyone like family and worry and care deeply for the well-being of others regardless of race, gender, or species. They happily wag their tails for all and gently protect those who need it. They are nourishment and love. They embrace community. They are Earth in a furry body. Earth Dogs have an abundance of patience which can be laced with quiet determination when they want something. This is a polite way of saying that stubbornness and obsessiveness can be two of their shadow traits. I have found that there is a fine line between patience and stubbornness, and it all depends on our chosen human perspective. Earth Dogs are not always quick, complex thinkers. It takes patience and a lot of treats to teach them, so short, quick lessons are best. However, their memory is excellent and once they learn and master something, they will never forget it. The Earth Element Dog’s learning style echoes our Planet Earth, as it should. Earth carries its memories and records from its inception to current day, surprising us with new discoveries of ancient life and learning all the time. Earth Dogs, although seemingly slow to learn sometimes, will surprise you months or years later by perfectly completing a task or request you tried to train into them and gave up on. Their storage capacity is just different, more akin to Planet Earth. Like Earth, these dogs hold deep, important memories and teachings and release them when the time is right. That clearly shows a strong type of intelligence—an intelligence of prioritizing other Earth Element aspects such as devotion and nurturing over short-term recall. Short-term recall is best achieved with an Earth Dog by having a whole pocket full of treats! Who is teaching who? Isn’t it quite intelligent how they are training us?! The Story of Wilbur Wilbur came to me in a dream—three vivid lucid dreams—my first dreams in seven months, after a severe head and spinal injury caused by a horse, that changed my life. Six days after the injury, I had lost my sweet older Water Dog Luna following a long, hard bout with an aggressive tumor. I was dogless for the first time in 40 years, and if I ever needed a dog to give me courage and a will to heal, it was then. As soon as I was able, I began searching for a dog on the internet. It was summer of 2020 and the pandemic was raging across the country. Everyone was working from home and adopting dogs like crazy. As soon as a young dog came up on an adoption site, it was gone. Forlorn and lonely, I kept trying, while visualizing daily to manifest “my best dog ever”—a tall order as I have lived with so many amazing ones. I said many prayers asking Creator to help me out. Turns out someone was listening… One night, in my dreams, a mature yellow lab male appeared, saying he would be here soon to help. I told him I was looking for a puppy, but he persisted, dream after dream. As a healer, I have a lot of animals visit me in my dreams, some passing through to the Beyond, some just wondering when I’m coming back to see them (their mom usually calls the next day), and some just visiting to thank me for helping them. This was different—purposeful and aimed right at my heart. This yellow lab was for real, and I somehow knew that. The morning after the last of the three dreams, I was on the phone consulting for a Texas horse and dog rescue center and jokingly asked if they had a yellow lab puppy. No, she said, but we have six-year-old Wilbur! Wilbur was picked up by the rescue that same morning, the day he was slated to be euthanized by a kill shelter. He had been turned in to the shelter by a disheveled, broken man, Wilbur’s former owner, who could no longer care for him. Wilbur then made the crazy long trek from Texas to the Pacific Northwest with 34 rescued chihuahuas in a van. The harried and weary yellow lab from my dream was here. Wilbur arrived nearly hairless, very ill, wild-eyed with worry, and almost unmanageable. He had clearly been extracted from a life of love, fun, and family. He whined, wagged, and cried when he saw a young child or a teenage boy, as if searching for the family he left behind. Yet under all that chaos was a kind, gentle nature, a sweet, loving family dog that had been traumatized by the stress of change. Our wounds immediately bonded us, our sorrows, our major life changes, our broken hearts. Considering my injury, physical condition, and emotional state, it was not surprising that a nurturing Earth element dog came to my rescue. Recognizing him as an Earth Dog, I found my purpose and partner again in facilitating healing for both of us. In that purpose, we healed each other. I stabilized routines for him, gave him oodles of praise for the smallest things, let him help me when I needed it, and of course made sure there were plenty of “Earth Dog security snacks” to re-channel his worry and obsessiveness, and in return he gave me pure devotion, laughter, purpose to move when it was hard, gentle kindness, snuggly protection, and a loving presence that is hard to describe but I’ll try... When one is wounded deeply in body, mind, heart, and spirit, having a kindred, knowing, furry being watch over you, protect you, hold your tears, wag when you need it most and just be there when you need someone, is a profound gift. Wilbur is brave, strong, and gentle, and carries that presence with grace, ease, and a little chubbiness... just like an Earth element should. Author Bio: Elizabeth Anne Johnson has been working with the health and wellness of small, large, and exotic animals, and wildlife for 35 years as a veterinary technician, animal healer, and wildlife biologist and rehabilitator. She is the author of Know Your Dog’s True Nature and vice-president of Global Wildlife Resources, a TEDx Speaker, mentor, adventurer, and loving partner of Wilbur and Pretzel, rescues extraordinaire!   https://ElizabethAnneJohnson.com