Happy Easter! Remember to move forward!

"Humans have a tendency to hold onto the past, though, so a lot of times when they adopt a dog from a shelter, the dog comes along with the story of how it got there. The human way is to latch onto that story, and it becomes part of the dog — 'This is Betty. She was thrown out of a moving car and was just terrified when we got her. Now she’s our baby and we don’t want anything to scare her ever again.'

"Because people hang onto the story, they become overly aware of things that humans would call triggers. For example, Betty’s humans may never take her in the car because they worry that it will remind her of what happened. Or, if they do take her in the car, they’re the ones thinking about that experience and that nervous energy goes right to the dog and makes her afraid to be in the car.

"It’s a vicious cycle but there’s an easy way to end it. Let go of the story and live in the moment. It’s what your dog does, and it’s how so many dogs are successfully rehabilitated. What happened to the dog before it got to that shelter doesn’t matter. Everything that happens between you and that dog once you take on the responsibility for rescue and rehabilitation does.

"We don’t have to teach dogs how to let go of the past because they already know how, and this is one of the greatest lessons they can teach us. It is only when we can stop clinging to our own pasts that we can fully engage in that constant process of renewal called life."

Read more: http://www.cesarsway.com/the-scoop/cesars-blog/Renewal?utm_source=BlueHornet&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Apr14NL_3#ixzz2zXqqZTwc