Winning Friends and Influencing .  . Whatever… in the Canine World
                                                          By William Levine
 
     You don’t usually win friends and influence others by hiding under beds and invading personal space, but, Cookie, our whirling dervish of a Boston Terrier delights canine visitors to our home with these antics, which I clearly never encountered in the Dale Carnegie course I took.  Yet Cookie’s box-spring burrowing and up-close and personal lick-fests are her only endearing tricks that Dale Carnegie would  not approve of.  I would, in fact, present Cookie with my diploma as a bona fide Carnegie graduate if I thought she would not chew it.   Cookie’s canine friends pay our energetic, rambunctious  pet the highest canine-friendship compliment--utter exhaustion when they leave our home.
     One of  Dale Carnegie’s key principals towards becoming the next Oprah is “Don’t  Criticize, Complain or Condemn.”   Cookie takes this point to heart.  Our 14-pound pooch never growls, complains or begs for human reinforcements when dragged straight through several rooms as the loser in a tug-of-war with a large member of the working or herding class.  Besides tug-of-war, Cookie loves other mouthy play that features a lot of nipping.  Cookie never complains, criticizes or condemns while in this friendly play, even when her head ends up in a Golden Retriever’s mouth. 
     Another engine of  Dale Carnegie’s friendship train is the importance of  “arising in a  person an eager want.”   Somehow in this day and age, this seems like something that transpires over the web late at night.  At any rate, Cookie adheres to this Carnegie tenet.  She always has, cluttered around her dog bed, a collection of stuff-less stuffed animals, headless dolls, deflated tennis balls and slightly gnawed bones.  This invariably inspires an eager want from her friends to get in on the action at the fever pitch of  an  O.J. primed to re-acquire his memorabilia. 
     There is no doubt that Cookie is a dog that shows “honest and sincere appreciation,”  another D.C. stratagem for having more friends than money can buy.  Cookie sincerely appreciates a playmate marking a spot, so much so, that she will always reciprocate, whether well received or not, in re-marking this same hallowed piece of canine ground. 
     She always makes her friends feel important, adhering to another pearl of Dale Carnegieism.   She gives her dog-gone friends the ultimate ego stroking by letting them   into her inner sanctum, also known as Bill and Lesley’s bed.  Cookie doesn’t allow her friends’ egos to get too big, however.  If any friend ventures too close to her cave underneath the sheets, she feigns ferocity.
      As an astute observer of Cookie’s genius for friendship, I am planning on putting her strategy to use.   I will leave my resume and quick smile at home when I attend my next Networking For People Who Will Eventually be Laid Off  Meeting. Instead, I will bring a strong piece of rope, hoping that the three or four good tug of wars I can initiate will be more valuable in the push and push of establishing friendships.