Eat Sniff Play

Whatever your opinion of Cesar Millan, and there are many strong ones out there both con and pro, I do believe his heart is in the right place and that he truly connects with dogs.  I was delighted to stumble across this entry from  his  magazine about the spiritual value of walking with your dog off leash. 

• “How your dogs can lead you on a spiritual journey
• Here’s an exercise I’d like you to try: Next time you have a  sunny day,  take your dog out for a long walk, find somewhere you can let him off the leash, and play fetch, or just let him go to work scenting. Try to forget about everything else that’s going on in your life and focus on your dog. You see how totally happy and contented he is?   Your dog is happy because he is fulfilling the purpose for which he was created: to be a dog. ” 
•  
• (Excerpted from Cesar’s Way Magazine, December, 2010) 

 I believe we owe it to our dogs—to give them the freedom to be their animal selves —which is centered around being in nature, being free and being in a pack with other members of their species.   I believe it is core to our dog’s well being.  Of course, it’s good for us too.  I love my daily walks in the woods with Mandy and Rocky and the occasional visitor dog—and when I tune into them and their enjoyment it’s like a meditation.  I feel calm, at peace with myself and often will have those wonderful ‘aha’ moments of insight into problems or issues that I’m wrestling with.  The interesting thing is that even though I know how important it is for me to take the time for a walk in nature–I don’t always have the discipline to do it for myself, especially when it’s bone cold as it is in upstate New York these winter days–I do it for the dogs.  In giving (as in loving them),  I get so much back.   I’m amazed at how I’ve learned to understand what unconditional love truly is through the dogs.  This is the real spiritual journey that our dogs lead us on!

Sometimes I feel like I think so much like a dog that as a year goes by I feel like I’ve aged seven years, not merely one.

Of course, the wonderful thing about dogs is that although they age more quickly than humans, they don’t think about it all.  (Another reason I aspire to be more like them.)  They don’t think about death either and as my wonderful veterinarian friend Dr. Donna Raditic once explained to me when my beloved Hero was diagnosed with osteoscarcoma—“For dogs, death is just another phase of life — nothing to be feared –death is as natural to them as the changing of the seasons from winter to spring and from summer to fall.”  This new perspective gave me great comfort and indeed when his time came, Hero had no stress about his passage and I was better able to accept it too. 

In fact, the evening after Hero passed away I had a dream that he was lying on the floor beside the sofa where I was laying as he did for the last three years of his life when he was a “tripod” and didn’t have the strength in his remaining hind limb to jump onto the couch.  In my dream I was petting him and enjoying the feel of his soft fur when the thought came to me—“You can’t be here, you’re dead!  But you feel so real to me right now.”  And then, of course, I awoke.  To me, the dream was Hero’s way of reassuring me that although his physical body was no longer with me, his spirit and love would always be with me forever.  All I had to do was think of him and he’d be there.

So as we enter a new year, some of us with dogs whose ages make us wonder and worry if they will be around for 2012, I offer this remembrance from Hero as comfort and guidance.  Be like your dog:  just be present for each moment of life in 2011.    That is my new year’s resolution for all of us.

It’s hunting season in the rural county in New York State where I live so this morning I drove to a big open area, a former farm, that is now a  Conservation area with a hiking trail that circles a huge pond.  Even though it’s an area I don’t often frequent and one that I haven’t been to for at least a month, I noticed that as soon as we turned on to the two-mile dirt road that  leads to Ooms Farm, Mandy got really excited.  She started circling on the back seat, crying her little anticipatory whine of excitement and could hardly contain herself. 

 Of course, like any dog, she remembers her delight in swimming in this pond and hiking this trail.  But how did she know where we were going two miles before we got there?  The windows  were closed so it’s hard to imagine that there’s enough of a distinctive smell that this triggered her emotional excitement. And even if that were the case, why this particular road?  Aren’t the smells of the countryside pretty much the same from one farm road to another?  Maybe it’s the pond that she can smell from so far away?   Hero, my Golden Retriever, could detect lakes and oceans literally miles before we got close.   Maybe it’s a unique ability tied to the genetics of dogs that were bred to retrieve in water?  Though Mandy is a mutt, she is most identified as a black lab.   So I wonder is it the ‘feel’ or sound that my car makes on this particular road that somehow is stored in her memory?  Is it the particular visuospatial geography of turns in the road?  I drive frequently on dirt roads that do not get any arousal response like this.  How has she stored and then recalled this particular memory and through what sensory association?  If she can ‘remember’ this road, what else does she know and understand and experience that I have no clue about?   

I want to know because I want to understand dogs so I can relate to them more fully on their terms and not just on my own ‘human’ level.  I keep reading books and articles and watching documentaries like “Dog’s Decoded” or “Dog Genius”)  and yet it seems that even the most current research on canine cognition doesn’t explain the amazing creature known as dog in a way that I can embrace it to inform my relationship with one.    The closest I’ve gotten to really understanding how dogs perceive the world , imagining what it’s like to be a dog,  is through reading the book Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know by Alexandra Horowitz, PhD.  It is without a doubt, the best book on the subject and the most enjoyable one to read because Alexandra is not only a scientist but also a sensitive soul who loves canis lupus familiaris.    For example, in describing the ability of dogs to use their sense of smell to ‘tell’ them about time she writes,

“The future is smelled on the breeze that brings air from the place you’re headed. …  The dog’s olfactory window of what is ‘present’ is larger than our visual one, including not just the scene currently happening, but also a snatch of the just-happened and the up-ahead.  The present has a shadow of the past and a ring of the future in it.” 

  I love this new awareness of how dogs are perceiving the future before it’s here for us, yet still I’m not convinced this is the full explanation given the distance and the closed container of the car.

I like Brian Hare’s work (Duke Univeristy, Canine Cognition Center) but would like him to get into the field—literally, by conducting some research at Camp Unleashed and see how dogs really behave when given freedom to enjoy nature with their canine and human buddies! See more info about CNN’s “Animal Intelligence” program tonight.

It’s all about the fur–Living with dogs, that is, unless you have a hypoallergenic type. While I love the personality of poodles and doodles, I crave the feeling of touching a shiny, relatively clean, long haired dog like my aussie shepard, Rocky. So that means vacuuming fairly often with my trusty DC-25, which does a great job on the wood floors and carpets.
But what I hadn’t considered was the effect of all that dusty fur on my computer. A few months ago, my nearly new laptop started crashing unexpectantly and shutting itself completely down. I spent weeks with IT support, finally upgrading from Windows Vista to 7 (an ordeal that has made me swear that the next computer will be a MAC no matter what!) and even after that, the damn thing was still crashing. Finally I brought the laptop in to a local computer guy who is the kind of down-home no-nonsense New Englander that starts with the basics. Like maybe we should do a deep cleaning of your computer? Low and behold—what he found in the little fan vent that is designed to keep the computer from overheating was a ball of black fur so dense he wasn’t sure he’d even be able to pull it out. He said it was like a “little dog” in there.
Yup, I smiled to myself—that’s the mini-Rocky in there. I realized that when you love dogs and the pleasure of their silky fur — its’ always all about the fur. So remember: check your computer vent frequently and make sure it’s free of dog fur or maybe, try the new Dyson Groom Tool, due out in January. According to their press release, the new Dyson Groom Tool is a
”self-cleaning and mess-free vacuum accessory designed to capture a dog’s hair before it
spreads around the home. As the pressure is released from the tool’s handle
and the bristles retract, full suction is transferred to capture hair hygienically in the
vacuum.”

I’ve always loved the Dyson commercials because of the British guy who talks to you like he’s in your living room. He seems so earnest. He tells you how he invented this special, superior (Root Cyclone) technology (because he was frustrated with vacuum cleaners that lost suction because their bags got clogged with dust.
So I was pleased to read a profile of James Dyson and how he built his company in a recent issue of the New Yorker. It seems he is truly authentic—an engineer “good guy” who just wanted to solve a problem that was vexing him. Even though the industry “experts” said at the time that nobody would buy a vacuum cleaner that cost $400-$500 when you could spend under $100 for most brands (they were wrong!), he didn’t capitulate to them. He knew that if you could find a way to deliver a really superior product, people would be willing to pay for it. He’s my kind of entrepreneur—someone who has a passion and believes in it and wants to offer it to the world, rather than someone who’s figuring out how to make his next million.
Dyson’s latest commercial really grabbed me: In it he says in his solemn way with his starkly clipped British accent: “My mission is simple: to solve problems that other companies don’t seem to care about.” Which got me to thinking, how could I put my mission as simply as that?
What I came up with is this– My mission is simple: to give dogs more freedom. Freedom from the constraints we humans put on them to live in our world—freedom from the leash, freedom to be in nature, freedom from the domination of our imposing our human thinking on them, freedom to exercise their full dogness.

This morning there was a nip in the air and the dogs were frisky the minute I opened the door to let them out. I just naturally found myself acting frisky with them! I started pretend-chasing Rocky who had the Wubba in his mouth and was prancing around with that “come and get it look.” As they got even more excited and leapt over the stream that begins our walk in the woods behind my house, I heard myself laugh out loud. I realized then that I had “attuned” myself to the dogs’ energy. How simple it was to be in the present moment–feeling happy to be alive, in the warmth of some sunshine and the fragrance of fresh autumn air –by attuning myself to them.

I learned about “attunement” from reading a fascinating book called Dog: Pure Awarenss (Twilight Times Books, www.dogpureawareness.com) by psychologist and author Margot Lasher, Ph.D I was intrigued from the start because the book explores the ways in which human and dog experience and understand each other. Attunement is the way two beings sense the inner world of the other and strive to tune in or match the other’s energy level. “Attunement” writes Lasher, “is perhaps the deepest way that you and your dog communicate with each other. You are telling each other about your states of mind.” We all know that our dogs are sensitive to our emotional states and attune themselves accordingly, but what happens when we consciously choose to tune ourselves to their energetic state? My morning started off with an energy of expectant joy, thanks to Rocky and Mandy

I am so grateful for the dogs in my life. I feel like it’s a special privilege they have “granted me.” It’s not just what they have taught me but it’s their very presence—the deep satisfaction that I feel in relating to an animal without language, without human rational thought – just in our beingness together. They “let me know” when I’ve sat at the computer for too long—when it’s time to get out in the woods and smell whatever has transpired there since yesterday. They are so excited by just the mere possibility of the chase of some kind of prey—though thankfully neither has ever even attempted to hurt another animal. It brings me a sense of joy when I see them so engaged by such a simple yet profound pleasure. They ground me in life just by their being. This feeling of gratitude comes to me frequently and yet it always feels like some new wonderful discovery and gift. It is such a privilege that an animal willingly shares life with me this way.

The other day while walking Mandy and Rocky, I realized that they haven’t been responding as reliably as they used to. This is particularly important because we live in the country and enjoy walking without a leash on dirt roads. And then it dawned on me that other than our daily walks and weekend hikes, it’s been a while since we did any other activities together, like agility or playing frisbee which require a lot of “communication” and “teamwork.” So maybe that’s what we need — a new kind of “training” that’s not about “obedience” but is really based on play and interaction.

Dogs need the continual association of “positive reinforcement” to hold onto their learning as they are so much in the present all the time. By playing with them we are helping them to expand their ability to “perceive” what we humans are asking for.
The old fashioned kids’ game “hide n seek” is a good example. I used to play this a lot with Hero, my golden retriever, and he loved finding me behind the tree where I was hiding. The experience seemed to teach him to keep his “eyes on me” (more likely his nose) and always know my whereabouts.

So maybe we could invent a new kind of training that’s all about fun and games and yet would accomplish the goal of better human-dog communication. Both humans and dogs learn better when it’s fun!