Be Like Teddy

I have two dogs, Teddy and Marcy.

The other day, whilst taking them out for their morning constitutionals, it struck me that Ted is a very patient dog. He will take up to 20 minutes to find the perfect spot to ablute himself. This was more apparent that morning as Ted was suffering from a bit of an upset stomach, and was quite eager to get out into the garden. Once there though, he still took his time to pick his ideal spot.
Whilst watching this is silence ( if you talk to Ted whilst he is in his process he stops, sits down and wags his tail at you ) I was quite amazed that he still took a good 10 minutes to sniffed around for his perfect spot.
He was quite obviously desperate to get going, but still took the time he needed.

As he finally found his spot, hunched over to do his business and made awkward eye contact with me, I realised that Ted was demonstrating a very important skill:

No matter the pressures to get a task done, always take the time to try and do it right!

Almost poetic, isn’t it?

Don’t be like Teddy

The following morning, Ted had decided his perfect spot was between two thorny bushes in a long patch of weeds and grass.
I had a follow up thought whilst collecting his parcel, one arguably more important than the previous morning’s epiphany.
After climbing through the bushes on my haunches, untangling myself from their thorny grasps and using a bag on each hand to part the weedy grass – providing access to his morning drop off – the following occurred:

Be considerate to the people that clean your shit up when you are done!

Your process is one thing, and it should be encouraged whole heartedly, but if your end product is behind a bunch of thorn bushes in the tall grass and weeds then it makes the next person’s job so much more unnecessarily difficult – after all, Ted could have done the same business on the freshly cut lawn, out in the open, a few meters to the left…