I am the proud owner of a bulldog named Cleo (that you may have read about), and since I love her so much the area around her dog door is fenced off so that she doesn't fall into the pool and drown. However, Lucy, my other dog who is a great swimmer, also has to be fenced in. Recently, we couldn't figure out why Cleo was repeatedly coming through the dog door wet as if she had been drinking from the pool that should have been blocked off. All the while Lucy would beg to be let out from the patio so that she could swim in the pool and then beg again to be let back inside.

I walked out back to see if the gate that created the dog run had been left open and saw that the entire fence had rusted out and was laying flat on the ground. I then watched as my bulldog happily walked across the fallen fence to go play in the rest of the yard. But, Lucy the setter refused to cross what used to be a barrier even though she so badly wanted to run the rest of the yard.

Lucy had become so accustomed to the fence that, even when it had fallen down, couldn't realize that she could cross the fence. While I will admit that Lucy, though I love her, is not the brightest of bulbs, her inability to realize the fence had fallen did provide for a lesson of sorts (even if Lucy wouldn't be learning it).

While I am not about to fabricate some life-changing piece of wisdom from watching a dumb dog, it did make me wonder. Maybe what I think of as barriers really aren't there anymore, or maybe hadn't even been there at all. Sometimes the only thing blocking us from running a marathon, earning a scholarship to go to your dream school, or even winning the Pulitzer are our own thoughts. Telling yourself, “I could never get in the shape to run 26 miles” or “I don't have the grades to earn that scholarship” are simply excuses. Maybe, we are the only ones limiting ourselves and the fence that keeps us from where we want to go may not actually be there anymore.

Excuses will never justify doing what you want to do and could never substitute achievement. So, take a piece of wisdom from a couple of dopey dogs and cross the barriers you think are blocking them as if they are not there at all.