Dog Pure Awareness blog

Shiro and I woke up this morning in northern Vermont and of course it was snowing. But the deep snow, now with a new layer, was not the most significant aspect of the landscape. It was the wind, incredibly fierce, which tore up the fresh snow and rolled over the fields like waves of the ocean.

Toward 11 am I thought it was calming down and I pulled on snowpants, boots, etc etc and took Shiro down the farm road to the woods. But halfway there, surrounded by open fields, we were swept by spiriling gusts, and Shiro, who was way ahead of me, came racing back to my side. This is one of the many things i love about dogs. Something frightening happens, and they want to be protected by you, and they want to protect you, and they want to be together. They know that the best way to face the danger is to stay together.

As soon as we enter the woods we track deer. The best place in the forest is a deer bed. We follow the tracks to a bed, where the snow is packed down in a comfortable oval, and rest there. It is like being under the Cone of Silence. The wind is raging, the upper branches of the trees are swaying and creaking, and snow is flying, but we are under a large old pine tree with its thick boughs of needles, and we are safe. And dry and silent. I have a new respect for pine trees and the wisdom of deer.

Bev's dog FIONN

Bev wrote: He was 15 and in his last summer when I took this. He and I had been lying in the leaves by the lake, nose to nose, when I reached for the camera.

I love the example of Chloe tuning into her human’s sneezes, sensing the sneeze before it happens and going to him. We know that our dogs tune into our inner worlds, our joy and sadness, but these examples can be hard to describe. The sneeze is so concrete, so bodily. It is, at the individual level, the same as the dog’s attunement to dramatic changes at the planet’s level. Did you know that scientists trying to predict earthquakes now look at the behavior of companion animals before a quake? Cats, dogs and birds run away from home if they can, and if they are trapped in the house they become terribly fearful. Before that devastating tsunami, the wild animals fled to the mountains and did not die. They tuned into the vibrations of earth and ocean and acted upon their perception.

So Chloe tunes into the vibrations of her human who is about to sneeze and goes to comfort him. I’ve never heard of another dog who does exactly this. I wonder if Chloe had a frightening experience as a puppy centered around someone sneezing.