Carbon Paw Prints

Ghandi once said, “”The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”

Rocco just snuck up to my room and is sleeping quietly at the foot of my bed. It only took a week of sleeping on a dirty bean bag in my equipment room to feel welcome to join the pack upstairs. It's nice having a 4-legged creature watching over me as I sleep or maybe pretending to since he couldn't hurt a fly. When thunder and lightening struck last night he dashed under my computer desk wanting to be protected.

My neighbor gave me a book by a leading dog expert on discipline and training, Cesar Millan's New York Times Bestseller "Cesars's Way" ~ achieving balance between people and dogs. Cesar also has a popular show on National Geographic called the "Dog Whisperer". I'm hoping to teach this old dog some new tricks including how not to bury chew toys and milk bones in flower gardens and chase garbage trucks that could squash him like a pea.

Environmentally, Rocco is doing his part to fertilize an empty plot of tall grass just down the road. And rather than my driving to the Y for a workout I'm running 5 miles with him every morning. I'm apt to plant more trees and hedges to create a boundary for the dog as well as switch from chemical lawn treatments to organic products. For all the socks that Rocco is chewing through I admit he's turning me into an even bigger environmentalist.