Dog Pure Awareness blog

I drove down to Key West from northern Vermont with the two dogs, and I was worried about Holly on the trip. She was less than a year old and had never been on a long trip. She was amazing. In one day on the road she learned: to stay on the grass at a rest stop, to pee at a rest stop, to sleep when we were driving, and maybe most importantly, to not bark at strange sounds in the motel room. She just watched Shiro and did what he did. Shiro is of course an experienced traveler, having been to Key West and Manhattan many times.

On Labor Day weekend Shiro and I went to camp, Camp Unleashed in the Berkshires, and had a wonderful time. Some of you know that 4 years ago Shiro came close to dying of a tick paralysis. As he slowly recovered, I decided to just let him do whatever he wanted for the rest of his life. Because although we are often unaware of it, we can get stressed by performing, and our dogs tune into our stress and resonate to it. And his illness was within his nervous system, and I wanted him to feel as little stress as possible.
But at Camp, which as its name suggests is a place to run free, explore and deepen the human-dog connection, I decided to try agility with him. And after 4 years he remembered every obstacle except the dreaded weave poles, and he loved it. The instructor was extremely perceptive: just before the dog walk (high and narrow off the ground), I hesitated – it couldn’t have been more than a second – and he picked it up and asked me if there was a problem. I told him, and he said calmly and quietly to try it. Then Shiro sailed up the ramp, trotted across the walk, and calmly descended the second ramp, a perfect dog walk.

This is Shiro in the city, posing calmly next to a snowman in Washington Square Park. He wears a leash, heels, and follows all the city rules.

My son just got 4 baby chicks and he lets them roam around the yard while he’s watching them in the evening. We put Shiro in the house but he found an open door, and with the chicks wandering freely, Shiro came trotting into the yard and came right to me, ignoring the birds. He then lay down and seemed to be pretending not to see them (in psychology it’s called ‘denial’). But the chicks had no experience with predators and were basically without fear, so one of them flew right up to his head, close enough to his large mouth to be disappeared in an instant. Shiro raised his head and went into his ‘high alert’ mode. I froze. This is a dog who preys on wild turkeys, and whose idea of a walk is to go hunting. But he knew that he couldn’t eat the chickens. He didn’t touch the baby chick.
This is really being in two worlds. Can you imagine the restraint it took to leave that chick flying next to his head alone?

I’ve been working on the idea that dogs live in two different worlds, the human world of culture, rules, and human dangers, and the world of nature, with the connections of wild animals and  the dangers of the wilderness.  The amazing thing is that our dogs seem to be able to connect comfortably and easily to both worlds. They feel a sense of belonging in both worlds. They settle into the house, curling up on our bed at night, and then the next morning they race into the woods and are immediately aware and alive to everything. It’s an incredible ability to cross a complex boundary.

I’ve just returned from the Dowsers Convention in Lyndonville Vermont and met some wonderful dog-people. I’m going to repeat the description of my talk for those of you who weren’t there, and I hope whether you were there or not, or there spiritually but not bodily, you will be interested in this idea.

Our dogs live in and between two worlds, the world of nature and the world of human culture. They are masters at negotiating the boundary between these environments, staying present and centered in themselves in both worlds. As dowsers, we also cross the boundary between worlds. By watching our dogs, we can learn about seeing different realities, and staying true to our selves.

Doesn’t it sometimes amaze you that our dogs can be themselves, feel at home, feel like they belong, in both of these worlds? That they can go from the safety of the couch to the dangers of the wilderness (or the big city after dark) instantly?  

I am working on the play, Other Minds, for a showing at FlynnSpace in Burlington VT on August 9th. I am writing a blog describing our work for the Flynn Center website. The link is:

http://www.flynncenter.blogspot.com/

I think as dog people you will like to read about our progress. We are trying to present the Dog on stage as a wise, noble and perceptive being. And we are presenting the relationship between Dog and Human in many of its complexities. So check out the flynncenter blog.