Peeve

I get a lot of e-mail. Between my work account, personal account, small business account, and commercial (read shopping) account I get a LOT of e-mail. That is not my peeve. In today's world you can't really get away from it. What peeves me receiving e-mails that have clearly been forwarded repeatedly without anyone bothering to verify what they are passing on as fact. 

The last one I received was from a friend who I'm sure forwarded it believing in good faith that it was fact based but it did NOT sound like a real story to me. It was about a dog named Brutus who won the Medal of Honor by saving his trainer and killing several insurgents during the Iraq war. The problem is that, as of this writing, there have only been four Medal of Honor recipients for the current Iraq war and none were canines. The forwarded e-mail included a picture of what they said was a Boxer/Mastiff mix that weighed in at over 200lbs. After checking Snopes it turns out that the actual trainer of the dog pictured has come forward with the real story. The dog, whose actual name is Spike,  is a Belgium Malinois and he's a retired k-9 from Scottsdale tipping the scales at less than 100lbs. Apparently nothing in this heroic dog's life of service was glorious enough to warrant being forwarded via mass e-mails.  

I can't count how many e-mails I've received like this one. I don't always research them, some times I just delete them. Every once in a while you might find a thread of truth but why does it have to be buried in fiction. Are we so overstimulated that we need everything to be bigger, badder, and more dramatic than it really is in order for it to have an impact? 

Since it is the time of year that we give thanks for all our blessings I am going to try being more grateful for the everyday things - the kinds of things all of our lives are filled with. Today I am grateful for a former police dog from Arizona named Spike and every anonymous, unglamorous task he ever performed. Thanks for everything Spike, you may not be a Congressional Medal of Honor winner but you're a hero none the less. 

Hey, how did my peeve turn into a moment of gratitude?