Life lessons from the pup

A new arrival reminds Natalie Garrett how to learn much about a life of simplicity and joy.

Natalie Garrett

Natalie produces and narrates The Seen & Unseen Aloud podcast. She's an Anglican minister and a trained actor.

Life coaching can be tiring.

So finally, we caved. We bought the puppy. We had been strong and resolute in our parenting decision to say no in the face of almost daily requests over a period of probably three years. But when we moved out of London recently, we relented and got a puppy.

We have had him for nearly a month now. He’s 98 per cent fluff and utterly glorious. He is taking us back to the early days of having our own human puppies – you mustn’t let him out of your sight for a second or he’ll a) be literally under your feet so you tread on him, b) be eating something disgusting you didn’t know was hiding under the sofa or c) well, you can guess what c) is.

But what I hadn’t reckoned on, when I collected this beautiful ball of snuffliness from his breeder, was that he would turn into my life coach. I have learnt so much about life – and specifically how to live it well – in the last couple of weeks, just by watching the way he lives his life.

For our puppy, everything is an adventure.

“Someone’s opening a door! What excitement awaits on the other side?”

“Oh you’ve leant down to talk to me – maybe if I lie on my back, you will give my tummy a rub?”

And so on.

Occasionally, he expresses sadness because everyone’s left the room and he can’t follow us upstairs. But otherwise, his glass (or bowl) isn’t just half full, it’s brimming over. As long as he’s been fed, he’s warm, he’s been let out to do what a dog’s got to do and (most importantly) he’s been shown love and affection, he’s happy and trusting. And then falls asleep, paws akimbo.

Somewhere, I read that in the Bible there are 365 statements variously translated as “do not worry”, “do not be afraid”, “do not be anxious”. 365. One for every day of the year. And even if that rather neat number isn’t actually accurate (although how amazing if it were true), clearly the Bible has a recurring theme around worry, fear and anxiety. Perhaps this most human of conditions is not such a new phenomenon as we think. God has been addressing issues of mental health for hundreds and thousands of years.

Jesus talked about it a lot. He addressed it head on in one of his most famous teaching sessions:

‘Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?’

In my puppy, I see (mercifully not a bird flying around) a creature who trusts that he’s going to be looked after. He trusts that he will have food and love so he is free to enjoy chasing a ball or chewing a stick. He models to me the very wisdom of Jesus. He doesn’t overcomplicate his life, he just lives it. As people, we seem to experience life as endlessly complicated. And, of course, sometimes it really is. Some of us carry all sorts of responsibilities that are very complicated indeed. Some of us don’t have our most basic needs met and that’s awful. I pray we can find and help those around us in that situation. But for most of us, most of the time, life really isn’t that complicated. If we have enough food, clothes on our back, somewhere warm to shelter and someone to share love with, that’s a good life right there. If we are privileged to have our basic needs provided for then maybe we can worry less and enjoy more. But for some reason, it’s not as easy as it sounds.

Like countless others, I have carried with me the shadow of depression for many years. Through CBT and other therapies, I have had to learn new ways of thinking to keep the light on, as it were, and the darkness at bay. In this battle, Jesus’ words provide powerful ballast against the tidal waves of the depressive storm. He encourages us to choose, by an act of will, to fill our minds with truth and with the evidence of good things: the promise of his faithful provision, thus forcing out the lies of the darkness. As we choose to fill our minds with the knowledge and love of God, there is less room for worry and anxiety and we find rest for our minds. This choice brings freedom and the space for joy to grow. And, as we have come to realise in recent years, this battle is real for all of us, in different ways and to different extents.

Wonderfully, my puppy seems to have excellent mental health. When Winston Churchill spoke of his own “black dog”, I don’t think he was talking about a bouncing ball of fur begging for a tummy rub. But as I fill my mind with thoughts of Jesus and my puppy, I will continue to learn much about a life of simplicity and joy. And I am grateful to my children, wise beyond their years, who were instrumental in bringing this puppy/life coach into our family.

Snippet

Change

Community

Fun & play

17 October 2025

3 min read

How London’s little festivals opened the door to my community

Helping an elderly Elvis to his gig gave me a glimpse into a new way of city living

Thomas Sharpe

Thomas is a writer exploring the intersection of faith, politics, and social justice.

An elderly Elvis impersonator sits on a stage wearing a gold suit.

Dave Elvis.

Finding community in the middle of a city is a strange experience. I have lived in London for six years, in six different flats, and have rarely known the names of any of my neighbours. The starkness of my experience is made all the more glaring when I visit my parents. They live in a small town, close to the countryside. They know all of their neighbours, even the new ones. There are WhatsApp groups where people request eggs or leaf blowers or an extra garden chair from one another.

My parents’ town has two things that London doesn’t: an acceptance that neighbours should depend on one another, and enough physical space for meaningful interactions to take place.

Where I live, we are self-sufficient. The idea of asking a neighbour for anything is uncomfortable. I discovered this a few months ago when I went to ask a neighbour if I could borrow a can opener, seriously fighting the urge to walk to the shops and purchase a new one as I knocked on her door.

In London, we have no space. Rather than seeing my neighbour over the fence in our back gardens, I see her on the stairwell. We’re both already moving to other places, so a nod is all that is exchanged.

But over the summer, I attended two community festivals. And there, I saw a glimpse of something different; the fruits of a circumstance where people depended on one another and finally had some space.

Back in July, my wife and I went to the Cally Festival on the Caledonian Road. We were both heavily overdressed, having just come from a wedding. From Pentonville prison to the Marathon Ethiopian restaurant, the road smelt of Jamaican food and locally baked goods. We were surrounded by stalls on every side, the gravel beneath us overtaken by a dance floor and children’s chalk drawings. Our ears rang with the words of a local poet, which jarringly transitioned to a local rap artist as we strolled along the road. Here, in the middle of our city, there was finally enough space for community.

We were at the festival because a local celebrity wanted to sing. Dave was an Elvis impersonator who had lived on the Bemerton estate for many years. He and his flat had aged together, and he was now wheelchair bound without lift access. This would be his first outing since Christmas. Someone from our church had asked if we could come and help carry him down the stairs. The Cally Festival was forcing us to depend on one another.

I was captivated by the festival, and the way it transformed a small part of the city. So, the very next weekend, I ventured a few streets west to Somerstown Festival. Just a hundred meters off the Euston Road, I experienced the very same phenomenon. A closed road, lined with smells, stalls, and sounds, with enough space for community. A group of people actively serving one another with a level of dependence that was creating community before my eyes. I looked left, and a young man was lifting a table onto the pavement for an elderly stall owner. I looked right, and a Catholic nun was handing out inspirational quotes about the environment.

Community festivals can’t happen every day and cities will always lack space, but the two I visited taught me something significant about building community within my concrete home. Our neighbourhoods require opportunities to serve one another. Whilst I'm unlikely to need a leaf blower or garden chairs in my London flat, I may need a can opener or support at a community event. Small confessions of need like that could represent the mustard seed of deeper urban communities.

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