Our dogs got into a huge fight last night. I heard it as opened my car door after coming from doing a photo shoot. At first I thought it might be one of them having a fight with a raccoon or something. But when they were going at each other like all hell had broken out. I yelled (useless), I kicked (useless) I got a garden utensil and used that to pry them apart. (eventually successful).

But all those things were the WRONG thing to do. They don’t care about you yelling. They don’t feel the pain of a kick right then, too much adrenalin pumping. And a garden utensil, well, it is dangerous!

What I found out later I should have done was take hold of their back legs and pull them away and in a circle. If you don’t have two people to do it to the two dogs at the same time, you should get a leash and put it around the abdomen/hind area of one and pull them away, tying them to a fence or something, then go to the other and do the hind leg technique.

The whole thing made me think. Besides thinking about how stupid I was (and how the dogs suffered more than if they had just kept fighting) I saw how completely and utterly intense they both were. They both were intent on the kill for the most part. it was scary to see. The smaller dog (wiggle dog) was really the aggressor, while stumpy dog was holding on tight! If you extrapolate that behavior to human pursuits, who is going to succeed in them? If you are in a competitive realm, then the amount of fight you have (willingness to pursue your goal, in the face of obstacles and setbacks) is more important that your natural talent and your background and connections. I am talking long-term here, not short-term.

So, don’t bite anyone, and don’t hurt them, but keep the belief and intensity of a fighter who knows they can succeed if they keep at it. Then your size, metaphorically speaking, will not matter all that much.

Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman

“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.” –  Mark Twain, 1835-1910, American Author