Email

Did you know that if you write a little story on your website about your dog and how he chews up tissue paper when you leave the house that you will receive a flood of email concerning what you are doing wrong with that dog? That apparently you don’t love your dog enough, and so the reason he is chewing up tissue paper is because of that lack of love.

Many of these emails will begin like this, “Look, I really like you, I do, but…” and what follows the but is a huge amount of unsolicited advice on how to fix your problem, with a little bit of judgment on your character thrown in.

Internet, I really like you, I do, but… please stop sending me advice about my dog. Or my daughter. Or my constipation, for that matter. I know you mean well, I know that you just want to share your advice and what has worked for you. But when you add your unsolicited advice on top of the heap of unsolicited advice I get already, it gets to be this huge heaping heap of unsolicited advice that I don’t even know how to sort through.

Just so you know, the reason Jon and I scream NO! NO! NO! at an object Chuck has destroyed is because a DOG TRAINER taught us to do that. It prevents him from approaching that object again. We’re not shouting NO! NO! NO! at him. In fact, by yelling at the object we are creating a team between ourselves and the dog against the object. It works. And my God, I was just trying to tell a story.

I have never received so many reprimanding emails in the entire time I’ve kept this site. In honor of Chuck and his tissue chewage, I have added a Number 13 to my FAQ page, which, if I might give you some advice, you should read as, “I appreciate that you care enough that you want to help me fix a problem you think I have, but I probably don’t want you to send me that piece of advice. But, thank you.”