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Your Dog’s Perception of Mental Illness

Lauren Langford
7 min readJul 2, 2019

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https://www.pexels.com/photo/closeup-photo-of-short-coated-white-and-gray-dog-825947/

My mouth is watering watching her push her food around on the plate with her fork. She has been doing that a lot these days. Her chicken breast makes circle after circle after circle. Sometimes she glances at me with a nervous smile and I think maybe she will pass it down but she never does. She must think that if she mixes it all up enough then it will fool her parents and make them think she ate it but she’s not fooling me! The same amount of food is on her plate, begging to be eaten, and the worst part is that when her parents aren’t looking, or when she thinks they aren’t, she’ll throw it all away. How could you not want to eat your tasty dinner, and doesn’t she get hungry without it? My belly hurts so bad and I feel like I can’t think straight if I miss a single meal. Maybe that’s why she’s so tired all the time, and so very, very sad.

They confronted her about it the other day, her parents, the ones who fill my food bowl just like they try to fill hers. At first I thought they were doing the right thing, but then they started to yell at her and she started to cry and watching the whole thing I just felt sad for everyone. What they don’t understand is that I don’t think she can control it, there is something else going on, and what she doesn’t understand is that they are yelling because they feel scared and helpless. Her mother said she’s starting to get too skinny and…

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Lauren Langford
Lauren Langford

Written by Lauren Langford

Listening is more important than speaking.

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