The positive dog is a motivational book based on two dogs. There is a negative energy, sad, depressed dog names Matt who lives in a dog shelter. He explains that he has come into bad experiences in his past, and that he does not know any other way to express good feelings. Also, not ever having been chosen by a family hat walks in the shelter makes him even more depressed. One day, he meets an old dog by the name of Bubba who talks with Matt and works with him on becoming a positive dog. Bubba had been in the shelter after a fire from his old owner, who couldn’t be found after the horrible incident. He says that every dog has two sides to them, a positive dog and a negative dog. The emotions that you express and give off among others shows you which dog inside you that you feed the most. The message is so much more than a fictional statement about dogs. We, as humans can take this advice and use it in our everyday life. Your attitude depends on the person inside that you want to be. We should starve the negative dog in us, and feed more positivity because it does not only affect us, but it affects the people around us, how we view things, etc.
The benefits of being positive section in the book makes it clear that it is important to be positive. Not only because that is the way people should be anyway, but because it makes you a happier person. It leads to great opportunities and success, it helps people to live longer and be healthier. Being negative of course comes with negative effects. When you have a negative attitude all the time leads to being stressed and depressed, weakens the immune system, eventually increases the chances of heart attack and stroke. It is clear in understanding why it is important to be positive.
The “simple as a smile” and “feed with laughter” sections talk about feeing the positive dog in a person as much as something simple, a smile. Finding things that interest me as a person and makes me laugh are the things that I should surround myself with daily. Having something as simple as a smile forms and molds the brain into being more positive. In the book, Bubba said something as simple as enjoying the smell of flowers would feed positivity, or even telling jokes. Matt started to realize how much happier he was when he laughed. Matt noticed the great feeling of smiling, because he had not done it in so long. Matt and Bubba had the pleasure of laughing uncontrollably at “knock knock” jokes while laying on the lawn. Understanding what makes you happy as a person determines your outcome of being positive or negative.
Take a thank you walk talks about how you should show gratitude and thankfulness throughout the day for everything that you have and are able to do in life. Bubba says that it is best to take your thank you walk in the morning because it gives you a great boost of energy for the day and multiplies your positivity feed. Showing that you are grateful for such small things in your day-to-day life feeds the positive dog in you to become stronger and powerful. When you shoe gratitude for your abilities you realize how blessed and fortunate you are, and how you do not have it as bad as you think. Three points that stood out to me was first, “you cannot be stressed and thankful at the same time.” I found this to be very interesting. I find that there are a lot of people who tend to be this way. It is sort of contradicting to be stressed and thankful at the same time. Of course, there are time when you will have negative thoughts or attitudes, but being stressed is more of a state that you enter when being negative for so long. It makes me wonder if you re stressed, then what do you call yourself being thankful for, besides the state of stress that you put yourself in. Secondly, “gratitude is like muscle. The more you do with it, the stronger it gets.” Matt explained that it felt awkward to show gratitude to everything that he had done and came into contact with during his day-to-day living. He