Be Happy Too

Day Care for Burr

It is 65 years since the song, Make Someone Happy debuted in 1960—a long time in anyone’s book. I would have referred younger readers unfamiliar with the song to the closing credits of Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan’s movie, Sleepless in Seattle, but suddenly realized that that romantic comedy is now 32 years in the past and may also be lost to modern viewers.

But the truth of the lyrics struck home with me just the other day when my son arrived, as he does every weekday, to drop off his dog for day care. Fraught with my own concerns, my spirits nevertheless lifted as I saw the Big Burr coming through the door, a doggy smile curving his lips and his eyes squinted with pleasure as he clearly anticipated another day of treats, walks and naps on the couch.

Burr is a strange beast, a large pit bull-hound mix with a massive head, bulging jaws and ridiculous spotted ears that look like a Valkyrie’s helmet when he pulls them back. The potentially fearsome look is completely undone, however, by the gentlest of eyes and a nose and lips of cotton candy pink. They bespeak a disposition as calm and mellow as any I have encountered in the animal kingdom, gentle, affectionate and even-tempered.

There is no discernible reason for him to be so good-natured. Burr came to us from South Carolina where his home was a house of horrors—he was confiscated from a hoarder who had 26 dogs on his property, six of whom were already dead. He had no name, had apparently never been outside a wire enclosure, was much thinner in the picture posted by his rescuers, sported a three-inch scar across the top of his head, and was (is) scared to death of everything new. The rustle of a dried-up hydrangea blossom blowing across the lawn once flattened him to the ground.

I suspect he may have been bred as a fighting dog but, as we got to know him, we weighed naming him Ferdinand after the storybook bull. All he wants to do is sniff flowers—every flower, on every walk.

His life is much different today. Initially terrified of furniture, he has developed a penchant for beds and couches, preferably with a human to share the space. He will eat dog food but prefers his kibble topped with a few sauteed meatballs. And picnics! Oh, the glory of a picnic where there seems to be no end of the proffered treats! He has embraced the dolce vita with more and more pink smiles of contentment.

And that is the point of this column. One morning I remarked to my son that I am happy to see Burr every morning because I can make him happy. I can’t make the world a peaceful place, I can’t feed all the starving children, I cannot stop the kind of hatred and anger that motivates people to kill perfect strangers, I can’t reason with those whose cruelty is motivated by a lust for money and power—none of those things are in my control. But for eight hours every weekday, I can make “just someone happy.”

It is well recognized in the health community that owning a pet—or even babysitting one—is beneficial to human wellbeing. Scientists have found that caring for a pet can reduce stress levels, lower blood pressure, increase levels of physical activity, lessen feelings of loneliness and depression and even promote social interaction (walk your dog down the street and see how many people want to speak to you). Interacting with pets is shown to lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol and to release calming endorphins.

Scientists may can measure cortisol levels and endorphins all they want. I think the benefits of making “just someone happy,” is simpler than that and is encapsulated in the words of one of my favorite human beings, Abraham Lincoln.

Lincoln, like many presidents, had trouble with people who fussed over his religious beliefs. No one knows exactly what he believed or didn’t believe but I think he summed up a standard all of us can embrace when he wrote, “When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. And that’s my religion.”

My dog, or cat, may bring me unconditional love. Maybe. (My cat has been known to shun me for days after I return from a vacation.) But I am sure that I will feel good if I make it happy. Perhaps an attitude of giving more and expecting less in return is the elixir this old world needs to “be happy, too.”