My loyal dog, Sunny, graduated from dog training this week. There was a cap. There was an edible diploma, and there were hours spent over the course of the last two months teaching her new skills while stuffing her full of countless treats.

I sat there watching my golden doodle—who once ate an entire set of plastic dishware and showed zero remorse—demonstrate that she could now sit, stay, and wait on command. She touched my hand with her nose when instructed. She left things alone that didn’t concern her. She dropped things she shouldn’t have picked up in the first place.

And that’s when it hit me: my dog now has better life skills than I do.

This is humbling in ways I’m not entirely prepared to process.

Somewhere between doomscrolling at 2 a.m. and getting frustrated by strangers on t

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