Doggie Zen Lessons #2

Again it has been a while since I have posted.  Life has sort of gotten a bit crazy.  I’ve had some thoughts about posts, but this one has been banging around for a bit so I’m doing it first.

 

As I have said before my dog is a good teacher.  She gave a brilliant lesson in the kidneys to my college animal physiology students that I will share in the future.  Persephone is quite fast learning and understands patterns quite well so she sits automatically when we cross the road.  We don’t need to give her a command to do it anymore for it any more, she knows that she needs to sit.  Yet, sometimes she takes longer than others to do so. . . 

 

 

Most of the time she realizes we are going to cross the road, checks to see everyone who is with her is waiting on the sidewalk, and then sits down.  Occasionally she takes forever to sit.  Sometimes it is obvious why - there are interesting people to sniff or she is distracted or tired after a long run.  But other times she just takes forever with no clear reason.  Occasionally that means we have to wait for cars which we wouldn’t have had to do if she would have sat right away.  Or it takes longer than usual to get something done.  Most of the time I roll my eyes and contemplate hurrying her up.  But then I remember that she does sit down, when she is ready.  In her doggie head there is a reason and if I try to hurry her up or worse yet attempt to cross the road before she has sat down, her distress is clear.

 

It is the ritual of checking and preparing, not just blindly jumping that is important to her.  She must check everything and then sit.  I don’t need to know why sometimes she chooses to wait a minute.  She could be checking for other people or dogs, hearing something that is different than usual, double checking that “her people” are all safe, or just smelling the roses (otherwise known as checking “peebook”).  She could just want a minute longer before crossing the road.  Not sitting is her way of telling us that she isn’t ready.  That it’s not time yet.  That the little rituals of life matter. . . and I don’t always need to understand why.