Dog Pure Awareness blog

I had an interesting experience in the woods with Shiro a few mornings ago. We entered the woods from the field along the deer path, taking a route we know well. The snow is still deep and walking anywhere off the deer path is very difficult, so all the animals who live in the woods use the same paths. This morning, Shiro went in slowly, stopping every few yards to freeze and sniff the air. When we walk, I follow him, and when he stops I stop. He was stopping much longer than usual, highly alert. I watched him.

Deeper into the woods, at an area of dense small pines, he stopped. I stopped too, and noticed that the usual sounds of the forest were not around us. We have birds like crows who stay all winter, and some migratory birds had even returned that week, so cawing and chirping are part of the surroundings. There are woodpeckers tapping, squirrels clicking, and just the swish and creak of branches in the wind. These woods were silent. I had a déjà view experience –  a sense of something wrong.  

It took me a minute to remember: it was in the water, twice, once off of Kauai and once off of Culebra. I was swimming and a shark came near me in the water. All of the normal ocean sounds suddenly seemed to be quieted, not the waves, but the living creature sounds, the scraping of lobsters along the sand, fish waving their tails through the water, gulls and pelicans swooping around. These sounds were all gone.  I knew that I was in danger and swam as fast as I could to shore.

It was the same feeling of danger in the woods that morning. As I was remembering, Shiro, who hadn’t moved, turned and came back to me. He led me out of the forest.

On the deer path there were so many tracks overlapping each other, so many journeys, that I hadn’t seen anything unusual. But back at the field I looked closely. And there, where Shiro had not yet gone, were many tracks that looked a lot like Shiro’s, a pack of dog-like tracks, that could only be coyotes. They had come across the field and entered the woods ahead of us. They were the danger.

On Friday the 13th at midnight Shiro and I were on the Jordan Rich show, WBZ radio out of Boston. I say “Shiro and I” because although it was radio and Shiro didn’t talk, his presence was central.

When we arrived, Jordan, who is a genuinely friendly, really nice person, gave us a tour of the CBS building. My literary publicist Ellen Corrado and her daughter Sarah were with us and he showed us the WBZ TV studio, with its glowing green weather set and its millions of lights, letting Sarah sit in the anchor’s chair – it was all very exciting. But these are reporters and talent who work at all hours, munching crumbling donuts with their coffee, and Shiro (who was off leash) was under the desks of everyone – famous and not. He was having a great time.

Jordan later said that Shiro’s presence broke down barriers. It was an interesting observation because Jordan himself is a master at relaxing guests, encouraging callers, and bringing out the best in people. He was recognizing something in Shiro that is in himself. They were attuned to each other.

When we had been on air for a while Shiro got tired and went to sleep under the table. Jordan actually noticed that he was gone and asked “where’s Shiro?”. It was wonderful. I didn’t have to think, didn’t worry about what would happen next – we were all together, connected by Shiro’s energy.

Meg, thank you for your kind and insightful words about the book. As you saw, I have great difficulty with death. I know that some people have reached an inner state of acceptance, but as much as I have studied and practiced spiritual traditions, I have not reached that acceptance. In the woods with Shiro I feel the oneness of everything and the sense that death is a return to that unity. But in the house, in the human world, I go into an inner state of fear when a close companion, dog or human, dies.

Anyway, I’m glad that my struggle with this, and Paul’s comment, helped with Henry’s death. Paul made that comment years ago and I never forgot it. Maybe (I am thinking out loud now) I should try writing more about the death of one’s dog. I know that many very good people have already done this, but another work from a slightly different perspective can’t hurt.

beauty

see Jennifer’s poem to Lucy in The Poetry of Dogs

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.

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.