It was a gorgeous day. There were dogs and people every­where. Families opened picnic baskets, sat on blankets and camp chairs around the ring, and watched dog after dog prance in and out of their formations.

When it was our turn, Danny “heeled” with the kind of brisk steps that got me thinking of animal statues again. He “came” on a trot. He “sat” on command. He “downed” to the ground with a heave. All of a sudden, I knew this was real, authentic, genuine. We were actually competing. Inching our way up the rungs of doggy greatness. Just a few more routines and we, too, would taste the glory of it all.

And then it came time to “stay.”

To “stay,” you are to put the dog in a “sit” command, turn your back to him, and walk away a good thirty paces or so before you turn and face your dog again. It is a three-minute exercise. In this case, I gave the “stay” command with an air of author­ity, just the way the dog trainer had taught us. The trick was to plant the dog without hesitation, to make it clear to the dog that you knew what you were doing, and that you also knew what he was supposed to do. I walked away from him with a firm step and a confident air.

Danny looked at me and started to pant a bit and then to shift from haunch to haunch. I held my breath and pinned him with a stare. At the second minute, Danny began to look from side to side around the ring where babies squealed, “Doggy! Doggy!” all the while waving hot dogs in the air. At two and a half minutes, a big white standard poodle sashayed by, her nose up, tail wagging. Danny’s ears went up, his nose went down, and he took off galloping across the ring and over the rope in hot pursuit. “Lady! Lady!” the judge yelled at me, “control your dog!”

Oh, sure.

It took an hour or so to find Danny, sitting at the edge of another family’s blanket eating their Puppy Chow. There was a happy look on his face. Life had taken on an aura of joy again. He didn’t look remorseful. He didn’t cower when I showed up. He certainly didn’t attempt to run away. He just rolled over on the ground and put his feet up in the air, paws collapsed, and the side of his mouth hanging lazily on the grass. Bliss.

And I? Well, Danny may not have learned what I wanted to teach him, but he certainly taught me a few things that day which are not to be forgotten: We are all what we are inside ourselves—and it is those things we need to develop. We are not here to become the pawns of someone else’s ambitions.

We only went back to one more dog show after that, this time to conformation—the beauty pageant for dogs—rather than to the obedience trials. Danny was simply not made for obedi­ence tricks. This time, though, Danny got a trophy for “Best in Show.” And that was enough for us. Dog shows, especially obe­dience trials, were clearly for other kinds of dogs, not this one. So, as the Irish say, “We let them to it.” We also let Danny go on to become his own unique self in ways that brought laughter to us all. I had wanted a dog with character, and I got a dog who was a character. And we were all the happier for it.

Two Dogs and a Parrot: What Our Animal Friends Can Teach Us About LifeBut I learned a lesson from his search for himself that has stood the test of time: Life is not about becoming someone else. Life is a matter of coming to be the best of what we are—and allowing ourselves to enjoy being it, at the same time.

—from Two Dogs and a Parrot: What Our Animal Friends Can Teach Us About Life by Joan Chittister (BlueBridge)