The world’s happiest dog

Happy, happier and happiest. Those are Shea’s three emotional states. He’s not only the happiest dog in the world, he may be the happiest being in the universe.

Everything makes Shea, our Australian shepherd who turns 2 years old next week, happy. Everything that happens in his life is the greatest thing ever.

Each walk, and he gets two a day, is the most fun ever experienced on Earth. Everyone who visits the house has come to see him specifically, and each person visiting is the best human ever and needs to be smothered in hugs and kisses. Any person visiting his back yard — and he does consider it his back yard — is welcomed with Shea running gleeful laps around the yard and balls offered for throwing from Shea’s smiling mouth. Each ball thrown is then chased with uncompromised fervor.

One recent morning I was taking a shower with the bathroom door open and I stepped on a tennis ball. I opened the shower curtain and saw Shea sitting there with a smile on his face, waiting for me to throw his ball.

Shea wakes up every day overjoyed to be alive and goes joyfully full-throttle throughout the day. The only time he throttles back his glee is when he sleeps, but even asleep he’s the most exuberant dog I’ve seen, with dreams that almost always include barking, leg-pumping and growling.

Shea often wiggles his whole body in ecstasy: upon people coming home, upon his canine companion, Bobby, entering the room, upon anyone even looking at him. And if people wiggle their bodies back at Shea, he wiggles, jumps and spins in response.

While his never-ending joy can be wearying occasionally, mostly his happiness is infectious. Even when he’s scolded, Shea is chastened only momentarily before starting the greatest make-up-with-the-humans lovefest in the history of canine-man relations, complete with much kissing, wiggling and cuddling.

One morning recently, though, Shea ran out the front door to greet a neighbor he’d met previously. This was not a major concern initially, as I know Shea is impulsive and loves all people. After greeting the man with typical Shea merriment, though, Shea took off running around the neighborhood, something he’d never done. He thought it was funny that I was chasing him. I was desperate to catch him because we have a major street nearby, it was rush hour and people drive heedlessly here.

When I finally caught him, Shea was his usual squirmy, cheery self. But for the first time in his life, I was truly angry at him.

I yelled at him. He tried to charm me into forgiving him. I didn’t… not right away, anyway. I wanted him to know I was upset with his behavior. He followed me upstairs to make up. I closed the door in his face. When I came out of the room and told him, loudly, that I didn’t want to be around him, he slinked out the doggie door, his lack of a tail between his legs.

When I didn’t see or hear him for about 30 minutes, I went to look for him in the yard. I found him hiding behind a tree, shaking and whimpering. I realized I had punished him too harshly, and the happiest dog in the world had become the saddest dog in the world.

So I went behind the tree, hugged him and told him I loved him. He felt better, although for the rest of that day he was not his usual effervescent self.

I think we both learned something that day. Shea learned that running away is going to get him yelled at in a way that makes him deeply sad.

And I realized I don’t want to make the happiest dog in the world the saddest dog in the world ever again.