Higher Places: The Spirituality Found Through Our Dogs, by Annette Marie Spiezio

[Note: This book was provided by Outskirts Press in exchange for an honest review.]

In reading this book, as someone who is not nor has ever been a pet owner of any kind, except vicariously through relatives of mine who owned pets, I was reminded of some family stories that shared the author’s preference for learning emotional and spiritual lessons from animals rather than people and for parenting pets instead of children. One of the pets adopted by the author and her partner remained easily frightened at loud noises and sudden movements all her life, the telltale sounds of animal abuse, similar to the sensitivities experienced by other pets, like my grandparents’ beloved mutt Muffin, and even people who have a similar history of abuse whose lingering effects never seem entirely to go away [1]. Likewise, the fact that some people seem unable to handle the complex emotional needs of people may be able to handle the simpler but still present emotional bonding that can take place with animals, as was the case for my late father, who famous declared in his senior yearbook that he would rather be with a cow than a woman, referring to his difficulties in dealing with beings of emotional variability more marked than that of placid dairy cattle. The author, in this sense, reminds me of members of my own family who have sought in animals substitutes and replacements for their seemingly intractable problems in dealing with people on an emotional or spiritual level.

The contents of this short, roughly 100 page long, book deal with a set of thematically and generally chronologically with lessons learned about the author’s motley crew of dachshunds and other breeds of dog. These lessons include the importance of having fun, of cooling down to avoid angry scenes, the importance of cuddling and affection, the need for animals (and humans) to avoid isolation and loneliness by having relationships with others, the importance of patience and of learning how to suffer and die as gracefully as possible, and being quick to forgive and slow to hold grudges, and eager to learn and grow. These are all worthwhile lessons, although the author seems to make few biblical references of any kind and appears to be more inclined to seek her experiences with pets as a personal and mystical religious experience, an idea bolstered by the way the book ends with the Hindu Namaste, which is properly a greeting referring to some imagined divinity present in the person being greeted but is often used as a closing in Western New Age thought for the same general purpose.

It is intriguing to note that during biblical times in ancient Israel and its surrounding nations, dogs were not beloved pets but were rather skittish and extremely timid scavengers. Most references to dogs refer to their uncleanness or general lack of nobility, or even as an expression for a sodomite, or at best a proud and strutting greyhound (see Proverbs 30:31). Yet our contemporary culture is far more generous-minded to dogs, recognizing the emotional sensitivity that they have and often showing, as the author does, more gentleness and fondness for animals than for our own kind. The author, for example, lets her dogs share her bed, and even gives them open kisses on the mouth, something that would probably not be the case for many people. It is good to learn spiritual lessons wherever one can, and if the author has learned to be a more friendly and gracious person from her dogs, than all the better. It is more important that we learn than to be compelled to learn a certain way, after all. It remains to be seen, though, whether the author has applied the lessons learned from her beloved pets to the people in her lives, or if it merely exists as intellectual knowledge that has not sunk into the heart to make her a more spiritual person in her dealings with others, which is one of the most pivotal aspects of any relational lessons that we learn in life.

[1] See, for example, the story of my grandparents’ dog Muffin:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2015/01/03/trouble-will-find-me/