This Precious Life

When I was young, I had piano and ballet classes. The ballet classes were discontinued as soon as Mum saw I will never plié as a plié should be pliéd, but the piano lessons went on for I-do-not-know how many years. I quite enjoyed being musical although there were ten minor challenges – short fingers.

One day, I decided that I did not want to do the Piano anymore. Little did I know that this easy decision would bring to the surface the difference between my parents’ child-rearing beliefs. Mum would nag, scold and whack with a rattan to get me to move my butt onto the piano bench, stick my fingers onto the keys and strike out the chords for Piano Sonata in A minor, D. 537 by Franz Schubert. Dad would persuade, cajole, entice and reward.

Eventually, both ways failed at a great cost. It would be the first time I heard my parents argue. Dad later confessed that the rift between him and Mum caused him to be so heartbroken that he couldn’t focus when he was at work. My brother hated seeing that so much that he gave me a well-deserved slap. Things got better, thankfully, though I got my way and never played the piano again

Mum always said that some day, I will regret my choice. :D

Anyway, I brought this up because I was thinking of obedience-training my dogs. As guard dogs, Dino and Charise need to obey at the instance of the command. It is not “obey by the third warning,” or “obey by the count of ten”. It is “Obey. NOW!”

It has always been easy with Dino who loves to obey with his whole heart. Ask him to sit? Oooh what a delightful task. Ask him to lie down? There’s nothing else he would rather do. Ask him to come over? What took you so long to ask? Dino is a joy of a dog.

Charise who is extraordinarily carefree have needed some extra-training towards submission and on the surface, it seems as though we’ve broken through. These days when you ask her to sit?

She sits with her big blinking eyes portraying her carefree innocence. But, deep down, I know that the training is not complete. I know that she obeys only because she has judged that the reward for obedience (e.g. a walk) is worth the few seconds of letting her butt touch the floor.

When Charise knows there isn’t any reward other a praise, as carefree as the wind, Charise will run. Never mind that you’re screaming “Charise! Charise! CHARISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!”  with all your might. She’ll be back when she’ll be back.

It is the same problem my parents had when trying to get me to play the piano. The child’s heart was not there so even if there was momentary, surface obedience caused by spanking or praise, in time, as carefree as the wind, she will run to play with other toys. And she’ll be back when her heart for piano lessons have grown.

Does that mean all is lost until then? What if her heart for piano lessons never grow? Of course not all is lost. There is always wisdom we can learn. For parenting, there are two books that comes highly recommended – Shepherding a Child’s Heart and Instructing a Child’s Heart by Tedd Tripp

For Charise the DOG, well, I’m stumped. If you have any advice, share and share alike. ;)