How to Raise a Jewish Dog Read Online Free Page A

that this Inner Monologue has several things in common with the Baseline Inner Monologue of the dog: It’s primarily
     emotional. There are very few abstractions and a lot of urgency and joy and insecurity and pride and worrying about food and
     hysteria about health. Also note how it is directed not to the owner himself or to some hypothetical listener (like the Inner
     Monologue of the conventional owner), but
to the dog.

    “I love you so much, how am I supposed to go to work? ” By the end of our Program, some owners are so bonded with their dogs
     that they have difficulty leaving the house.

    Dog typically responds to overwhelming love by thinking, I love you, too, but go already. The mailman’s coming and I have
     to get ready.
    An owner whose Inner Monologue resembles this one has learned, as we say at the Seminary, to “meet the dog halfway.”
DEVELOPING YOUR INNER MONOLOGUE
    Assuming your own Inner Monologue resembles that of the conventional owner more than that of the owner raising a Jewish dog,
     how are you to alter yours to suit our system?
    Again, we must stress: You don’t have to be Jewish, in either the religious or the cultural sense. You don’t have to convert
     to Judaism, or study Jewish texts, or take any kind of formal Jewish instruction.
    In fact, altering your Inner Monologue from whatever it now is to one more like the sample we’ve given you is fairly easy.
     All it takes is a few minutes every day, in the presence of your dog. The basic technique is as follows:
    1. Stand or sit near the dog, at a distance of no more than two feet. The dog can be sleeping, eating, looking out the window,
     or engaged in any other activity in which he remains relatively stationary.
    2. While staring fondly at the dog, say silently—to yourself, but verbatim, these explicit words—the following series of propositions,
     which we call the Ten-Point Cycle of Incipient Hysteria.
    The Ten-Point Cycle of Incipient Hysteria
    1. A dog is a miracle and having one is a blessing.
    2. I can’t believe how happy this dog makes me.
    3. This is too good to last.
    4. In fact, who am I kidding? It won’t last.
    5. It won’t last because either something will happen to me or to the dog.
    6. Either a disaster will take place or some crazy son of a bitch will come and do something horrible.
    7. And even if the dog lives a long life, he’ll probably get cancer. Would I do the chemo or just the radiation? Then there’s
     the prednisone issue. And what if something happens to me? Who will take care of the dog? No one will love the dog as much
     as I do. The dog will die of a broken heart, just as I would if the dog himself died.
    8. Why does it have to be this way? I’ll tell you why. Because that’s the way the world is.
    9. And don’t talk to me about a heavenly reward afterward. There is no Heaven. This is it. This life is
it.
    10. That’s why you have to value and embrace every possible source of happiness that comes your way. Like, for example, a dog.

    Studying the Ten-Point Cycle of Incipient Hysteria. Dog (right) is perplexed by owner’s behavior and wonders why brushing
     her teeth has become such an ordeal.
    Intone these propositions silently, in order, over and over, maybe while washing the dishes or brushing your teeth. You will
     notice that the last one leads smoothly back to the first. Make a photocopy of the Ten Points and keep it with you for ready
     reference. After a couple of days you won’t even need it anymore; you’ll have committed the propositions to memory.
    After about a week you will notice that your feelings about the dog will have changed. Before this process, you may have regarded
     the dog with a combination of many different emotions such as affection, exasperation, amazement, annoyance, and love. Some
     you may have felt strongly, and some not so strongly. Now, however, you will notice that your feelings have grown fewer in
     number but greater in intensity.
    And, as your feelings