Be Pushy & Make Your Own Path: Lessons from Liesl
Liesl doesn’t let anything stop her – not fear, not a physical obstacle, not a storm, and certainly not doubt. If she’s uncertain she tries another way that’s ‘less uncertain’ but I’m convinced that there hasn’t been a moment in her 4.5 years when she thought she couldn’t do something. She might have understood she shouldn’t do something. For example: I said no to her counter surfing for that plate of scrambled eggs, and she heard that maybe she shouldn’t try to get that plate…while I’m still watching. But can’t never entered the equation in her mind. She can and she chooses not to – but she always can.
This is Liesl’s optimum level of closeness! Yes, that’s my shoulder and we were in the car at the time.
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Liesl is a pushy b*itch. We say that because she’s a female dog, not because she’s the definition of b*tchy. But she is the definition of pushy! I personally believe that if you raise a pushy puppy, they will usually grow up to be a confident adult. And those confident adults, when properly trained and socialized to newness (more on that in a future post), are well-rounded, balanced, calm, etc. I’m not saying that I’m a dog genius, but I succeeded in this approach with Liesl. Her parents and her breeder can also take credit as she was properly bred and raised from birth to be a solid example of her two breeds: Giant Schnauzer and Standard Poodle. I reinforced that and now she’s basically perfect. I can say that. I’m supposed to say that. Perfect doesn’t mean she’s not pushy!
She is literally pushy. She will push you down to pass through a space first, if she’s motivated enough. She will push her sister out of the way (and Ruthie has 25-ish pounds on her). She will push her nosey-nose into anywhere it doesn’t belong but she thinks it should be, and will make no apologies. Liesl would have been in the room where it happened no matter what anyone had to say about it!
“Hi.”
But she’s pushy when it doesn’t really matter, when the prize is arriving in the kitchen first for mealtime or when she wants you to pet her (likely because you need comfort and just don’t know it yet). She’s never pushy with kids and rarely near my mother who walks with the aid of a cane. But her heart is made of giant puppy stuff and that manifests in the glimmer in her eye, the wag of her nub tail and yes, the unapologetic bounce of her brick house body.
Liesl is a pushy b*tch who makes her own path, for all the right reasons, and I aspire to be like her.