Our puppy Karu continues giving me fabulous insights into life.  Although, still very much a puppy, he is growing fast. A couple of weeks ago, he taught me something about visions, action plans, engagement, and perseverance.

When we got Karu, back in October, I had visions of my son playing for hours with the dog, and us going for long walks on the fabulous Guincho beach close to where we live. The dog would run, have fun in the water, play with other dogs, and retrieve balls for hours on end as every Labrador Retriever loves doing.  A dreamy, energetic yet peaceful picture. As the weeks passed, reality hit me: before such visions came anywhere near reality, there would be a lot of learning – about dogs, about training dogs and about training our son to train a dog. Not to mention learning how to manage all these learning processes. Clearly, I needed an action plan, otherwise this vision would turn into a nightmare. I started seeing an unruly dog ignoring my instructions, attacking children, running into the street, getting hit by cars, eating books, and chewing up sofas. No dog of mine would be like this!

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