Dogs are in the moment.

     Because of my last post about Sadie, our dog, I decided to comment on a book I just read called "Inside of a Dog, What Dogs See, Smell, and Know" by Alexandra Horowitz.   The author is a psychologist who has studied the cognition of humans and animals.  She made a few points which struck me as being important: 
     Point 1:  All animals have their own umwelten, or subjective realities, which are described as being like soap bubbles which enclose them.  We humans are enclosed in our own soap bubbles, too.   Our perception, or soap bubble, of the world is very different than that of our dogs.
     Point 2:  Dogs are anthropologists among us.  They are students of behavior and know us much more than we know them.  They are attuned to humans and notice what is typical and what is different.
     Point 3:  A dog's world (their umwelt) is smelly, it is well peopled with people, it is close to the ground, it is lickable, it either fits in the mouth or it doesn't, it is in the moment, it is full of fleeting and fast details, it is written all over their faces, and it is probably nothing at all like what it is like to be us.
     Point 4:  Dogs will change your own umwelt, your view of the world.  She mentions smelling the world more and loving to sit outside on a breezy day, and that her day is now more tilted towards mornings.
    Point 5:  Humans walk to make good time.  She recommends considering what the dog wants, going on smell walks, or dog's choice walks where the dog picks direction at every intersection.
     She made excellent observations.  Dogs are not us, but they know us, and change us.  They are our companions, needing contact as much as we do. Now that Sadie is getting older, we do go on more smell walks, more dog's choice walks. 

"Outside of a dog,  a book is man's best friend.
Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."
                            attributed to Groucho Marx

Updates:
     Sadie's leg is less swollen, she walks on it okay, she hates the cone around her neck.
     Today ends the 6th week of my health journey.  If it wasn't for this blog, there are days when I might have given up due to soreness or lack of measurable progress.  I know 6 weeks isn't much time, but I have high expectations.

"It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop."
                                               Confucius