It often occurs to me that us people, the so called dominate species of our own little planet in the rather mind boggling big universe don’t know a lot about much really. Even more so is that in many cases we aren’t prepared to learn from others around us. Now the topics of learning don’t have to be big picture stuff like atomic physics, medicine, the arts or anything in between, it can instead be topics you would never think of.

One topic that most of us are too busy living our insignificant (to the universe) lives is how to be happy. We spent most of our lives either learning how to work or working to earn money that we all want yet most of the time the money doesn’t make us happy. The lack of money makes us miserable in most cases and even when we get some, generally we want more. A lot more. We spend the money we get but generally what we spend it on brings short term happiness at best, normally just necessities so we can eat so we stay alive to go earn more money so we can buy food so we can eat … and so on.

But it occurred to me that many of us share our homes with the masters of happiness. What you can’t learn about being happy in life from a dog would fit on the back of something small like a postage stamp. Just about everything in life makes dogs happy. A kind word, pat on the stomach, a walk, chasing a ball, lying in the sun, a ride in the car, dinner. The list goes on and the way dogs see it, every one of those things will make their day and even the small things are big sources of happiness.

And the reason i thought of this. Grissom’s nickname with my niece and newphew is Snotnosem, i assume from the fact that he can get a little slobbery at times. And when they call him that, it makes him happy.