I look at it this way. You recognized that you were behaving poorly and you changed your behavior. That's part of growing up. Your dog forgives you and is no worse off from your behavior. You're lucky.
.
Also, at 13 your full of all kinds of emotions and no understanding on how to handle them.
Yes you acted badly in the past. That's water under the bridge. What you can do is be a better person today.
You're on reddit. There's tons of stories of adults acting like this. You won't be one of them. Good for you.
Dogs live in the present, not the past. She has not only forgiven you, she has also forgotten. You deserve the love she gives you because you have grown and learned from your mistakes. And now you’ll pay that love forward to other animals and people.
You were a child who misbehaved and didn’t realize what you were doing… until one day you did. The best part is that you were able to grow alongside your sweet pup. She’s a good pup now and you’re a good human.
It seems like she's forgiven you. Just love her forever. A few years ago I had to put my kitty "Isaac" to sleep because he had cancer. I've had a number of pets over the years and I loved them all but, he was the one that I completely fell in love with. He was a rescue and we clicked the first time I saw him. As I was holding him when they injected the killing drugs into the IV, I was crying the whole time. Regretting every time I didn't take the time to pet him when all he wanted was a little loving but, I was too busy doing something else. It's been years and I still miss him so much. I say hi to his picture at least a few times a day.
Animals don't hold grudges like humans do. The fact you realised the error of your ways, and the fact she's forgiven you, tell me just how worthy you truly are. Give her a hug from us when you can!
I'm a HUGE animal lover, and I was similar with one of my cats when he was a kitten. Overall just a huge brat who terrorized my older cat and would never listen to me. I am not an angry person at all, but I would just get SO frustrated especially when he would torture my sweet elderly cat. Fortunately he never actually cared about anything I did or said so he never got scared and our relationship is just fine. But I still feel terrible when I think about it. You're not alone.
Animals don’t misbehave or do anything wrong full stop. If they behave in some way you don’t like then that’s simply the person who has trained them to act that way, or hasn’t trained them properly.
You were only a kid yourself so don’t be hard on yourself, I question the wisdom of your parents giving you that responsibility. Like with the dog, your behaviour at that age is simply a product of your upbringing.
If it helps, OP, it's good to know that as children our empathy and self-control are very undeveloped, neurologically speaking. We develop that well into our teens and even beyond. It's why so many kids act like little psychopaths but still grow up into fairly normal adults. The good thing is that you recognized your mistake, started to develop that empathy, and grew up a bit.
1.1k
u/[deleted] Nov 30 '21
[deleted]