Yup. That’s really my dog. Her name is Souvie and it’s short for Souvenir. My wife was visiting her brother in the New Mexico desert when this tiny little puppy wandered over to them. She weighed about six pounds and still had her baby teeth. Somebody had dumped her off by the side of the road. Luckily, she was able to find the only humans around for miles before she became a snack for a coyote.
I didn’t really want another dog but when your wife calls and says she wants to bring a puppy back home with her to Massachusetts, there is only one correct answer, “Sounds great dear!”
That was 12 years ago and Souvie is now an old dog. Other than having a strange aversion to basements and garages, she’s a pretty good dog. She loves me unconditionally and I’m probably her best friend. She enjoys playing catch, going for walks, or just hanging out. I’m the one she runs to when there’s thunder or fireworks. She trusts me to keep her safe.
But, my dog doesn’t blindly trust me.
If I call her over and toss her a piece of whatever I’m eating, she won’t catch it. She lets it bounce right off her nose and on to the floor. Then she gives it a sniff or two and, when she’s satisfied that I’m not trying to trick her, she eats it. After that, she happily snags what I toss to her and snarfs it down. Until the next time I call her over and toss her a snack. Then we go through the process all over.
You need to know that she really loves eating people food (I know, it’s bad for her). So, I suspect that she really, really wants to believe that I’m giving her a tasty snack. But, regardless of how much she wants it to be good to munch on, she won’t eat it until she’s verified for herself that it’s something worth eating.
Here’s the thing. As far as I know, no one has ever tried to trick her into eating something that wasn’t yummy. She has no reason not to at least catch what I’m tossing her way. But she doesn’t. She makes sure that whatever I’m feeding her is something she should eat. Every single time.
The other day we were, once again, going through that same routine and I realized that Souvie can teach us all a lesson.
We’re constantly being tossed bits of information from a variety of sources. Dozens of times a day, someone tries to call our attention to some image, video or meme. Some of those sources we consider to be reliable, some not so much. Sometimes people are giving us good information and other times they’re purposely spreading half-truths and misinformation. And, without a closer inspection, it’s difficult to tell which is which.
Regardless of how much we trust the source (friend, family, etc.), we don’t know for sure that what they’re telling us is true. Sometimes we really want to believe what they’re saying but, until we look for ourselves, we don’t know that we should. Unless we do our own examination, we can’t be sure that they’re not simply trying to trick us.
My old dog is pretty smart, and we can all learn a lesson from her. Because she knows that you shouldn’t blindly consume everything tossed your way. And she understands that until you look for yourself, you don’t know if what someone is trying to feed you is something you should swallow.
