My Meditation Coach Weighs Fifty Pounds and Likes Belly Rubs

How a traumatized shelter dog finally shut my brain up.

Mar 06, 2026

Lots of newcomers this week - Welcome! A reminder to all, it is my hope that these things are fun, and/or insightful, and/or interesting for you to read. On some weeks I may even thread the needle and hit all three.

I don’t sell stuff or ask for anything in return. I know this is a foreign concept.

This week’s book recommendation is Howard Bryant’s Kings And Pawns: Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson in America. Two reasons you should read this book:

You take an interest in: US history, sports, the civil rights movement, the Cold War, or McCarthy-ism.
Do you know who Paul Robeson was? Neither did I previously. Once you read this book you’ll understand why, and what that says about us.

This is not a sports book. It is a human book.

My Meditation Coach Weighs Fifty Pounds and Likes Belly Rubs

How a traumatized shelter dog finally shut my brain up.

This past Monday afternoon I found myself lying in wet grass, rubbing the belly of a fifty-pound shelter dog. As the thawing Wisconsin turf saturated my ratty old jeans, I heard myself say outloud, “holy cow girl, I love you too!”

Now, how in the world does that relate to meditation? Bear with me…

Recently, I’ve been working very hard to become a better meditator. As I’ve gotten older, the constant chatter of my brain has become harder and harder to turn off. If you need any verification of this you will receive it in next week’s post. These song lyrics are a sneak peek:

“...sticks and stones may break my bones, but chains and whips excite me.”

I spent the better part of this past Monday morning with those lyrics playing on a loop inside my oft-rattled skull. Which was especially annoying because I have no idea when I last heard that song. Rihanna clearly built an earworm with that one.

Needless to say, my efforts at meditation have been wholly lacking in efficacy.

I’ve realized that this has been a problem my entire life. As a young person I mostly quieted my mind by watching TV and playing sports. In early adulthood it was my career, along with marriage and parenting.

In recent years, I’ve picked up golf as a hobby. One of the things I love about it is that I find the entire round meditative. I am outside, with beautiful scenery, and completely focused on the task at hand.

By the end of the round, whether I break eighty or blow up and shoot a hundred, I feel refreshed. However, despite its meditative qualities, I cannot devote four-plus hours each day to it.

My wife has made that abundantly clear.

So I’ve been reading books, listening to podcasts, and even trying acupuncture in an effort to quiet my brain. Most meditation advice says the same thing: we’re rarely in the present. We’re replaying the past or planning the future.

So I started small. Five minutes every morning.

As many of you know, I’m a volunteer dog walker once a week at a local animal shelter. Dogs are awesome for so many reasons. One of which is that they’re never replaying yesterday or planning tomorrow. Mostly they’re just focused on whatever is happening right now.

Because I’ve been there a while and am one of the only non-elderly/male volunteers, I’ve worked my way up to walking the “red” dogs. “Green” and “yellow” dogs, anyone can walk. They’re the ones who are docile and excited to see people, regardless of who they interact with.

Red dogs, however, are…a lot.

Usually, they are some combination of:

🐾 Big
🐾 Bad on a leash
🐾 Jumpy
🐾 Mouthy

Kinda like a middle-aged man who’s been told meditation will fix everything.

When I first started volunteering at the shelter, and wasn’t allowed to interact with the red dogs, I assumed it must’ve been because they were mean or aggressive. As it turns out, they’re usually just traumatized.

I realize that saying “just” before traumatized might sound insensitive. But if you think about it, being “traumatized” is a heck of a lot better than being inherently “bad.”

A lot of the red dogs arrive terrified of humans. The shelter works slowly to retrain that instinct with patience, treats, and small exercises like rewarding eye contact.

Which is how I got to know Garnet.

I’ve been walking Garnet for two or three months now. She’s a red dog.

When I first met her, I thought she seemed reasonably happy to see me. She’d spin in circles and wag her tail. Over time, I realized she was happy to see me mostly because she was learning something important:

Humans = treats.

One of the exercises we do with the treats is something to encourage eye contact. I’ll hold a treat out to the side while the dog sits and waits for it. For red dogs, their eyes are usually locked on the treat.

We’d rather they look at us. So we wait. Eventually, they glance up, and that’s when they get the treat. Sometimes they need a reminder. Usually it’s just saying their name.

When Garnet first started doing this with me, I could tell the eye contact was purely transactional. Like,

“Fine dude, here are my eyes.

Now give me the goddamn treat.”

Not dissimilar to most workplace dynamics.

But over time something changed with Garnet’s eye contact. Her gaze softened and lengthened. What before had felt like a thousand-yard stare was now a look of what can only be described as affection.

“Give me the goddmaned treat” had turned into, “maybe this guy ain’t so bad.”

This past Monday, the same day as my song lyrics, I saw Garnet again. The beginning of our time together was business as usual. Then, about halfway through the walk, she started getting closer to me.

She’d sniff the ground near my feet, linger, and then look up, making unrequested eye contact. This happened a few times.

Eventually she stopped completely and leaned her entire body up against my legs. When I bent down to pet her she rolled onto her back. At that moment there were two possibilities:

#1: She was being submissive because she was scared of something.

…or

#2: She wanted a belly rub.

It was number two.

I bent over and rubbed her belly, speaking softly to her for a good two or three minutes:

“Oh, hi Garnet, this is sooo nice.”

“You like belly rubs, huh? Well, aren’t you just the sweetest little thing in the world?”

She alternated between wriggling around on her back and lying still. She didn’t seem like she wanted it to stop, and with my surgically repaired back beginning to complain, I decided to take a chance and get down in the wet, still-dead grass with her.

There was some nervousness in doing so. Not because I thought she’d be aggressive, but because she is a fifty-pound ball of muscle.

One of my favorite shelter dogs ever, a gorgeous tank of a pittie named Ava1, once split my lip clean open with her cannonball of a head when I bent down too quickly and she jumped up to greet me.

Ava was fine. My ego required stitches.

Lesson learned.

I got to the ground safely with Garnet, and we continued the belly rub. After about ten minutes or so she decided she wanted to get up and walk again. We completed our loop, and I brought her back inside to put her back in her area. Upon unleashing her, I realized something:

During my entire time rubbing Garnet’s belly, I wasn’t planning for something later in the day. I wasn’t replaying some perceived slight from years ago.

I wasn’t thinking about anything really. I was just there.

With her. Completely immersed in the short white hairs on her belly, and the silly, sloppy, and happy look on her face.

Two creatures lying in the grass, neither of us worried about yesterday or tomorrow. Occasionally catching each other’s eyes and feeling goodness.

Just existing. And it was…delightful.

🐾 🐾 🐾 🐾 🐾 🐾 🐾 🐾 🐾 🐾 🐾 🐾

The next morning, I woke up and attempted my five minutes of meditation again. Five minutes turned into twenty. For most of that time, my brain was still pulling me here and there.

But in between those moments, there were small pockets of quiet. At one point I imagined myself in one of the most peaceful places I’ve ever been.

And then suddenly I wasn’t there anymore. I wasn’t anywhere. My brain had finally stopped narrating everything.

That’s when I realized something. That place meditation books keep talking about? It wasn’t mystical. Or difficult. Or something to strive toward.

It was just this.

Being exactly where I was.

The same place Garnet had been the entire time.