Dog Pure Awareness blog

Once upon a time my friend janet lived with her husband in a New York City apartment. It was a small apartment, but high up, the 19th floor, between Lincoln Center and the Hudson River. Every square inch of this space was chosen as part of an intricate design.

You are wondering what this has to do with dogs.

One night I was driving her husband home and Hogahn, a large magnificent Golden Retriever, was with me. In the Lincoln Center neighborhood there is no place to park, and even if there were you couldn’t leave a dog in the truck because he would be stolen. We went to the basement garage and were planning to ask the doorman to watch Hogahn while i went upstairs, but we first called Janet on the house phone and she said “Bring Hogahn up.”

Now until that moment, no animal had ever been admitted to that space. I believe that cockroaches were afraid to sneak in there. I reacted as if she had said: ‘put Hogahn in my bed so I can sleep with him tonight.’

We all took the long ride up the elevator and the long walk down the hall and Janet opened the door and of course Hogahn was glad to see her and pushed against her, squirming with happiness. Then he trotted into the space, past the grand piano, past the oil paintings with the little lights above and below so that he could observe the brushstrokes, and into the gallery center, where French pottery sat on tiny tables and flowers spread from glass vases while textiles waved in the air.

Hogahn negotiated the low tables as if they were weave poles, holding his powerful tail quite still. He paused to sniff a huge white flower and then went to the windows and looked down at the lights. Turning gracefully among the fragile bowls, he placed his paws on the priceless rug and lay down.

I looked at Janet and she was watching Hogahn, not with anxiety, not with tension, but with curiosity. She wanted to know what he thought of her space.

Before we left, she wanted to give him water in a bowl between his paws on the gallery rug. She saw him as a guest, and you do not serve a guest in the kitchen. When we left, she kissed him goodbye.

janet and Hogahn both died a few years ago. I miss them.

I didn’t know that Freud was accused of being obsessed with his dog (see Joanna’s comment), but I know that I’ve been accused of that. In our culture, if you are interested in ducks and their ducklings, or rock formations, or varieties of wheat, that’s fine, but if you want to understand the dog who you live with, who is unwaveringly loyal to you, who would risk her life to save you when there is danger – this is ‘obsessed’.

The species barrior is so incredibly strong. Humans need to separate themselves from animals. Perhaps it is because we are afraid of animals, who can be bigger and stronger than we are. And from this fear, we make caring about animals, we make human-dog relationships, trivial, not valuable, obsessive.

I want to tell you a story of across-species caring. It happened in Key West when our cat, Pumpkin, had 6 kittens which she was nursing, and one of the humans let her out of the house at night and then everyone went to bed. On this same night, Shiro was extremely ill; he had a tick paralysis which none of the local vets were able to diagnose and he was dying. (The next morning, we rushed him to the University of Florida Veterinary School and the doctors there saved his life). But that night, Shiro was lying next to the front door, unable to move. And Pumpkin came to the door, meowing and scratching desperately to get back inside to her kittens, and no one heard her except Shiro. Then Shiro began to bark, a very low energy, pathetic bark, but enough for me to hear him. I got up to see what was wrong, heard Pumpkin on the other side of the door, and let her in. Shiro, in the middle of dying, crossed the species barrior to help Pumpkin. He didn’t think ‘she’s just a cat’.

I’m going to answer Joanna’s first two questions (See her comment under ’The President’s Dog’), and save the third for later. Her questions go to the heart of relational theory as it applies to our dogs. 

Joanna: If Barack Obama senses the dog’s presence or energy, and is changed or calmed by it, is that implicit relational knowing, or what Gibson calls perception?

Implicit relational knowing falls under Gibson’s general concept of perception. It’s non-verbal, usually unconscious awareness (unconscious in the sense that you don’t stop and put it into words and think about it); you are aware of it as perceptual awareness, just as you are aware of the air touching your face. In the case of implicit relational knowing, it is awareness of another being and your connection to that being as opposed to the ground under your paws or feet.

Joanna: Does inner world attunement only occur if Obama perceives the dog’s subjectivity or inner world?

Yes. This is what is so amazing about the human-animal bond research. People who love dogs and live with dogs have known (implicit relational knowing) that their dogs have feelings, have excited or peaceful, alert or sleepy energy, love certain people and dogs and are indifferent to or even dislike others, etc. All of this is part of the dog’s inner world. But we psychologists have hardly touched this topic. We ask someone if they live alone, and knowing that our culture doesn’t consider dogs as significant, they say ‘yes, I live alone’ when really they live with their dog, who could be their best friend, and the only one who really connects to their inner world. So the President, who I would guess is highly perceptive, would know implicitly that his dog had an inner world.

I imagine Camp David (where of course I have never been) – a long winding path, about 2 years from now. The Dog and President Obama are walking through the cool, damp forest. Moss and leaves bend under paws and feet, and branches glisten above them.

The Dog freezes. He has picked up the faintest scent from a fallen tree trunk ahead. His breathing quiets, his whole body quiets, in order to focus completely on the source of the scent.

And the President is right there with him, focusing on the energy of his dog’s alertness. Whatever this man was thinking about beforehand – how to handle a certain Senator, how to word a certain idea – is gone. His mind is clear and tuned to his dog. Obama loves these moments, when he and his dog are totally focused together. Everything falls away except that moment. They are there together in the hunt.

There is a loud swoosh, a flurry of wings, and the pheasant hiding in the brush by the fallen tree rises into the air and up, through the branches, into the sky. The dog and the President are both startled. Then the dog takes off, racing through the forest in a doomed but exciting attempt to catch the bird, and the President smiles at the beauty and freedom of his dog, and he is happy.

The Obama family is getting a puppy, and everyone smiles thinking of the children and the wonderful, lovable puppy. But I’d like to look at the influence of that puppy on our President as they spend the next four years together. Barack Obama will grow into the role of president, and the puppy will grow into a mature, intelligent, fully aware dog. And as they spend time together, they will grow together.

Imagine that late at night, exhausted from a day of difficult and contentious issues, Obama is sitting in his favorite chair and his dog comes to his side. And he reaches down and puts his hand on the dog’s back and they are connected. And some of the tension in the man starts to dissipate as he tunes into the calm, centered energy of the dog, and he begins to feel calmer. And after a while, he feels renewed, no longer caught up in the political fighting of all the groups he has to deal with, and back to his centered, quiet self.  This is the serious side of the human-dog connection.