Sunday, January 08, 2012

Want a Happy Relationship? Think Like a Ranch Dog

by Alisa Valdes

    I was at the ranch last week, working on a novel most of the day. The cowboy was outside, working on finishing the dog houses.
    As often happens when I’m writing, it was 8 a.m. one moment, and 5:30 p.m. the next. Soon, the cowboy was coming through the door, exhausted and aching from a day of manual labor in the cold.
    I thought he’d be happy to see me after our hours-long separation, especially considering that I’d gotten a bit gussied up in skinny jeggings and a sexy sweater with high-heeled pumps. He was not. He was disappointed in me for a variety of reasons.
    “It’s pitch black out there, babe,” he said. “Did it ever occur to you to, I don’t know, maybe turn the porch light on for me?”
    I gulped. I was from the city, where it never got completely dark as it did out here. I’d also lost myself in my writing and didn’t even think about the fact that the sun had set and it might be hard for the cowboy to find his way back. In my world, it didn’t matter that the sun had set. You could usually still see where you were going thanks to street lamps.
    “I didn’t think about it,” I said with a shrug.
    “I know you didn’t.” The cowboy shook his head and frowned. There were other things I didn’t do that I could have done, and he told me what they were. He was right, and it was embarrassing to hear the list.
    “You’ve been in here all day, and you haven’t done a thing to help out around here,” he said.
    “I wrote a novel,” I offered defensively.
    “I know and I appreciate that. I’m not saying your work is less important than mine. But baby, you also found time to go for an hourlong hike, and take a bubble bath,” he said. But the dishes I’d promised I’d do still sat untouched in the sink.
   I hung my head low as it hit me just how accustomed I was to living alone in the city. I was in a relationship with a man on a remote ranch now, and things would have to change. I’d have to start caring a little more about his needs, just as he always seemed to do with mine. (He notices everything, often without seeming to be looking.)
   A couple of days later, the cowboy drove me to my car, parked at a neighbor’s near the highway, so I could return to the city and my son. We visited with the neighbor for a bit, a cowboy named Ralph (the one who likes opera who I mentioned in this post). The men got to talking about cow dogs and how they work together in packs.
    “The amazing thing about dogs,” mused Ralph, “is that they always know exactly what every other dog is doing, even if it doesn’t look like they’re paying attention. You can have one way over here, and another one way out there, and the one out there catches a scent of something, and the second his tail goes up all the other dogs come running from wherever they are and they start working as a team.”
    I thought about this. I’d seen the cowboy’s five Catahoulas do exactly this, circling a bull like one organism, each of them exactly where they needed to be, doing exactly what the other dogs needed, without being told to.
    It hit me. For a relationship to work, any kind of relationship, we people need to strive to be more like ranch dogs. We need to pay more attention to each other, to anticipate each other’s needs and meet them as though they were our own. The Bible talks about this often in the context of marriages, both for the husband and the wife. Attending to the other’s needs as your own does not mean doing for other people what you want done yourself at that moment; it means paying attention to what the other person is doing, who the other person is, where they are, where they’re going, what they need, and figure out how you fit into that and how you can help.
    I am sorry to have been so self-centered. Thank God for ranch life, and the cowboy who loves me enough to help me learn the valuable things he has learned there.

Originally posted Jan. 3rd on her blog and posted here with permission.  You also might want to check out her  8 Signs You’re a City Girl in Love With an Actual Cowboy;

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