What is love and when does it happen?
The answer to this question is very relevant to human pup play. Some pups are just seeking a good time in fetish play, but many more are looking for a deep and abiding relationship with either an owner or another pup.
Love occurs at its most developed in your relationship with another - be they master, pup, lover, friend, family, whatever role - when you are loved in returned. Love is best when it is mutual. That love can be defined by the sharing of things together, helping each other, giving and receiving comfort and acceptance, and relating to each other in affection, even intimacy. You know it's love because it feels good, it feels positive to experience, and we are prepared to commit and even sacrifice in some ways for it.
It is a giddy feeling to lose yourself in love, to go from being you to being us in a relationship. To misquote Austen, it is a truth universally acknowledged that people want to find love and be fulfilled by it. And when you are in love and loving, when your relationship is loving and fulfilled, you inspire others. Your love does not diminish others, it raises them up. The world around you is better because of your love. Your love helps provide the framework, the solid building of a civil society. Love is between parent and child, leader and follower, partners of romance and so on, to form our society. It is so important to human life we are exalted by it, and it underpins our bonds of society to one another. That's what love is, and ideally a pup should love his owner, and an owner should love his pup in return.
From the outside of pup play, many people assume it could only contain at best a passionate love, borne solely of and limited to sexual desire. These onlookers judge pup play as a fetish, as all about fucking and being thrilled sexually. That is an opinion, and they are entitled to have it. Sex has a place for many people in pup play, not just because it includes an orgasm. Often that physical and intimate relating we call sex, or fucking as I like to say, brings emotional closeness. Both an owner and pup can utilise sex to express their love and make the other feel special. Even a trainer can use intimacy and what we would otherwise consider foreplay actions - stroking, fondling etc - to communicate with his pup. What is the nature of this love? It's a question I am personally interested in as I have a partner, my wonderful husbear, and I like to be able to tell my bear that my pups are not a threat to our already established relationship.
The relationship of pup to owner and trainer is undoubtedly a romantic love, but we need to consider that there is more than one way to love. Hollywood would have us believe that romance is a formula and better than any other love. It isn't. And romance does not have to have sex to be genuine. The relationship between owner and pup, and pups in a pack can and usually does involve more than just sexual intimacy. It is natural for pups to rely on their pack, on their owner, for affection, for protection, for care. That is love in action. An owner and trainer had best acknowledge within himself that he too relies on his pups. To pretend to a distance, to behave with an attitude of controlled remoteness and diffidence to a pups emotional love, can lead to a pup feeling alienated and alone despite being "owned" by his master.
Puppy love is when a pup relies on his owner and trainer and trusts he is cared for. AS a pup you open yourself up to develop and grow your pup self. Your owner and trainer are your guides, your inspiration, your love. It can be distressing for a pup to be separated from his owner, because that love from his owner makes him feel safe. It is like being a child to a loving parent, except the roles have obviously been abstracted a bit and changed - unless your upbringing was very very strange. It's through the fantasy and the roleplay that you can let go pup and put yourself in another's tender care again as you once did in your much younger years. A pup needs to acknowledge that he is giving himself over to this loving relationship in pup play, but beware of adopting infantile behaviour in everyday life. Training helps to learn to distinguish the two and be a sensible well adapted person and a pup.
Your owner and trainer express their love by their care for you pup, as they assist and support you to become the pup you both mutually seek. Your owner puts your need to become a pup, to realise your pup self, ahead of his own needs a lot of the time. Like a parent does for their child. Your owners reward is often to be happy when you are happy, to share in your joy and fun.
Despite the similarities to parental love to child, what is happening in pup play is not immaturity. The tail, the hood, the trying to become a dog show that this is a primal expression of love. Abandoning the complexity of your constructed human personality, you can demonstrate love in what you experience at a much more certain and straightforward manner. A dog loves his owner, and an owner should love his dog. It's a companionship love that is part of our society too.
As a pup you will feel that you can be free to be yourself with your owner and trainer. He is there to support you and you can trust him. Your owner and trainer loves you because your happiness matters as much to him as does his own. You are his pup, and he is committed to your welfare. The affection you have and express for each other makes being in each others company pleasant and fulfilling.
The benefit of you having a loving relationship in pup play, not just seeking sexual gratification, is that the love makes you stronger. You cope with the stresses of your human life better knowing you are loved. It becomes easier to form loving relationships with others as you know love is fulfilling and worth the effort.
By learning through pup play to see love being manifested in a primal fashion - by avoiding human language and seeing love expressed non verbally - it becomes easier to see those cues in your human life. Having read the cues as a human pup, and then been rewarded with love and care, you gain the confidence to reach out as a man. You can grown and make the world better as you love others sincerely and bravely.