Dog Days and Happiness

Following the path from my previous piece on Happiness and Dog Days, I still find myself following two different paths.  The one I left off with was whether you ar as happy as your dog, and I've found my book on the subject.  It was written by Alan Cohen and s actually entitled Are You As Happy As Your Dog?  (Grammar break--should I add another punctuation mark after the question mark in the title?  You could make a case, I think, for both a comma and a period.  First, the sentence is not actually a question.  The question mark it contains just happens to be part of the object--namely the book title.  this is the case for the period--it is used to end a declarative sentence.  A similar logic can be applied for the use of the comma.  If you are choosing to link two complete thoughts in a compound sentence, the two parts should be separated by a comma--not a question mark.    Hmmm...  I'm going with the period.).  Back to Alan Cohen's little book.  After hearing a comment from a friend about his dream to wake up one day as happy as a dog, Mr. Cohen started thinking.  His dog (Munchie), seems to live in a state of continuous delight and discovery.  He goes on to share a few of his observations after watching Munchie for a few days (e.g., Munchie loves unconditionally.  Whenever Alan comes home, Munchie drops whatever he is doing and zooms to meet him.  He barks and cries at the same time, he wags his tail so hard he wipes the floor with his fuzzy butt...  Munchie gives him the same wholehearted greeting whether Alan has been gone for an hour or a week.  When Alan has been gone a long time, Munchie does not cross his arms (legs, actually) and soberly announce, "I think it's time we discuss your commitment to our relationship." Munchie is just happy to see Alan and he lets Alan know it.  Mr. Cohen goes online this for page after page, noting that Munchie always asks for what he wants, seizes the day, keeps his eye on the ball--literally and figuratively--laughs at himself and much more.  I highly recommend it if you can get your hands on it.  

(I've just returned from the Amazon--no, not in South America, at the web site--and it is available there) .  It's not that I'm  promoting the book, but it is a thirty minute read for just a few bucks and it's lots of fun.  Act now, and you will have it for these dog days of summer, which some say are the forty days that follow July 3rd and coincide with the rising of the star Sirius, whose presence augments the sun in the Northern Hemisphere.  Is this a great country or what?  I didn't need to drag out an encyclopedia and look and look for the reference, I just googled it and had 70,200, 000 results in 0.72 seconds--thank you Google.

Leaving aside the book on happiness from a dog's point of view, there are other ways to seek out happiness.  It has been said that smiling causes th release of neuropeptides in the brain like serotonin, dopamine and endorphins.   So, that takes you down another road--learning to smile (or smile again, you have just lost the habit).  If you are familiar with Wikipedia, you might also have seen a related site called WikiHow, which seeks to share how to guides on EVERYTHING, including, I have learned, how to smile.  I may just have to try some of these on to see what fits.   

Wait, Wait, I feel one coming on--annnnd I'm smiling.  Have a good one.