Today in class I was thinking about one time when a Mexican family came to do some landscaping for my dad. The only person that spoke English was a little boy who came with them and he was about 6. He was the only one who could communicate with me, and I could tell they were all family members and it was a type of business we had talked about in class. If anything, I did not look down on them at all...I admired their work ethic and how close they were. The 6 year old did not ever complain even though it was about 100 degrees outside. I brought him a Powerade and he was amazed because he had never tried one. At the time, I thought it was weird that he had never even heard of Powerade, but why would he? Its something truly culturally American.
The thing that struck me about this little boy was how well he translated and communicated between the other workers and I. He was so well spoken. He was in second grade and talked to me about his classes, and although he seemed a little nervous and apprehensive to talk to me, he was unbelievably polite. How could people be mad about this? My dog, a boxer, is hyper but sweet, and she was so trusting of these people that she did not bark when they arrived (and she usually does with strangers) and I had no idea they were there. She stayed by the little boy and gently walked next to him the entire time. He told me that she was the only dog that had ever been nice to him, which surprised me. Moose, my dog, taught me a very valuable lesson about trust that day- it has nothing to do with skin color, stereotypes, or assumptions... its all about qualities that everyone is often way too quick to judge.
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That is really interesting. Dog sure do have a foot up on humans. They certainly do not judge a person by their skin color. Dogs certainly do have a sense for trusting people. I had a similar experience but not my dog. This also doesn't have to do with race. My friends dog it also a boxer and he is the nicest most loving dog you would ever meet. He surprisingly does not bark at people but one day when Rex, the dog, was outside in the backyard he started barking uncontrollable. There was a man outside around the back of another neighbors yard. It looked like he was trying to break in so we called the police to notify them. They came but the guy had already left by the time they got there. They next week the guy was arrested for burglary. I guess he had been going neighborhood to neighborhood hitting up houses where people were on vacation or the house looked abandoned for a few days. Anyway moral of the story... wish we all had senses like dogs to pick out people not bases on their skin but rather their intentions.
ReplyDeleteIntentions!!! Thank you... that was the word I had been trying to think of hahaha wow that was bothering me.
ReplyDeleteI agree. I think that this just goes to show that you can't judge someone by what they look like. I think that it is interesting that we, as humans, are supposed to have the most developed cognitive abilities. How is it that we are supposed to be so much smarter than dogs, but we can't even be as open minded as a dog. In a way, I feel that this is kind of pathetic. Situations like this make us second guess our judgements of others. Although someone may initially think that someone is a threat, if something as instinctual as a dog doesn't find them threatening, why should we?
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