May 7, 2021
Dear Dog Moms: Play Hard. Share Water. And Get Your Beauty Sleep.
May all Dog Moms enjoy the journey.
I decided some time ago that the key to being a dog mom is using your animal’s playtime as your own chill time. As a passenger on my dog’s walks and playtimes, I’ve been refreshed in ways that straightened out my day job often.
So I kept doing it.
My “little girl” — a standard poodle — turned 12 on “May the Fourth” 2021. She’s always been a force, sweet and wise beyond my reach, so I registered her name as Dalila Ahlem, or “sweet dreams.”
Now way beyond my years, she’s taught me three things I keep close: Play hard. Share water. Get your beauty sleep.
Let not this lucky fluff fool you. She’s a dog, allowed to run (i.e. off-leash trained). She’s lucky enough to have great breeding (huge thanks to @MarieHedeman of Ash’s Mystical Poodles), so she’s healthy, an unsuspecting wrestler, fast runner and fierce competitor — all in fun — in dog games.
Dogs will turn nearly any shared place into a field of games and competitions. Instant playgrounds. Dogs with healthy playground boundaries (set by good parents) have the most fun, for sure.
Dogs with repeat play friends (i.e. really great dog parents) are creative in their social networks and game playing. They take it up a notch.
Find a group of dog parents with a pack like that and life is suddenly so good!
For nearly five years, Lila played with a pack of near-same age dogs every evening. She had a Labradoodle boyfriend named Odie (short for Odysseus). He was the pack bad-boy (alpha) and loved to bait her for which he paid dearly — often. She gained the name ToughPoodle.
The game begun, they wrestle for awhile until Odie takes off running, which gets the whole pack running.
Now, she’s chasing Fleet another Doodle. The pack-running game is officiated by Dozer, the Jack Russell on the right. He has a brother, Harley, who’s on the left just out of the shot. Meanwhile, smart alpha Odie, has left the pack for shade and rest, leaving Fleet to take the heat.
Odie might re-join the game, but it’s enough, Dog mom decides. Time to cool everybody down, which is easy.
Dogs always share water.
Dogs get “water cooler.” It’s the perfect interruption for young pups getting over worked up (and potentially mad at each other).
All the gnarlies are forgiven so they can do it again tomorrow. And the next day … for five years.
Fast forward another five years and she’s in another deep sleep after her morning walk and off-leash play with new friends in a different city.
She wrestled, chased a ball and debarked a branch. She’ll wake at 11AM a little hungry.
She’ll take an outdoor break… and go back inside her EQO Credenza for her afternoon sleep until her playtime before dinner. And, do it all over again tomorrow — a little differently.
Conventional wisdom says Lila is close to the end of her days but no one that knows her believes that. There seems to be much in conventional wisdom that no longer serves us.
We found another way and I founded MOMANT®, the sustainable design studio that created and makes Lila’s credenza. It’s actually a game changer.
Play hard, share water, sleep well, go even faster/better the next day. That’s her unfettered nature.
I’m pleased to have adopted that with her.
Stay tuned on more for how she/we have become and stay so healthy and lucky.
(much gratitude to@DavidCulver for the photos)
