I'd amend it only slightly and say that if we are open to what they have to give us, dogs can introduce us to several colors, with names like wildness and nurturance and trust and joy. I am not sentimental about dogs, my passion for Lucille notwithstanding. I don't share the view, popular among some animal aficionados, that dogs are necessarily higher beings, that they represent a canine version of shamans, capable by virtue of their wild ancestry or nobility of offering humans a particular kind of wisdom or healing. I don't think that the world would be a better place if everyone owned a dog, and I don't think that all relationships between dogs and their owners are good, healthy, or enriching. Dogs lead us into a kinder, gentler world.
Dogs can be aggressive and stubborn and willful.
They can be difficult to read and understand. In my view, dogs can be shamanistic, can be heroic and gentle and wise and enormously healing, but for the most part dogs are dogs, creatures governed by their own biological imperatives and codes of conduct, and we do both them and our relationships with them a disservice when we romanticize them. Everything shifts in this new orbit, sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically. The language is different, based on tone and nuance instead of vocabulary. The internal shifts are bigger, sometimes life-altering.