TIME AND THE DOG

I believe in animal-to-human communication and have often experienced it. My fave book on the subject,"Letters to Strongheart" (J. Allen Boone) was written in the 1950s. 

If a big "dog thought" hits me -- typically something about canines that in my conscious mind I have never contemplated - I sometimes query the dog:   "did you just send me that idea? Then show me."  With the Caucasus Dogs especially, I find that, when challenged for proof, they respond by holding eye contact like your mother did when she explained the facts of life to you. Occasionally, dogs may underscore the answering stare with an approach or a nose bump. This mute, self-possessed reaction to the Big Share can seem so very apropos, so very on-target, that it gives me a shiver.

One of the things Rocky "explained" to me concerned the "7 years to one year ratio" - the general arithmetical construct by which we delineate their time on earth in relation to our own. Dogs live their lives and pass so quickly, while we go on, that it seems to us a tragedy that such wonderful lives should be cut so short. Rocky shared with me, however, that while we humans live on the fast track (picture this as an old silent movie, speeded up), dogs and other animals actually experience their lives in what we humans would perceive as slow-motion, if we use the film metaphor again.

So dogs live entire full long lives, just as we do, but WE are going so fast that we miss out on much of what is happening around us.

When we were Neanderthal, or even tribal, and living past 35 was unusual, we and animals were also more in tune. Life moved at a natural pace. We might say, "a slower pace" but that would not cover the immensity in the difference between today's harried lifestyle, the absurd multi-tasking model [go faster, accomplish less and do so with less accuracy], and the many vehicles and conveniences we utilize in order to "be there" mentally, while we are "still here" physically.

After all, which seems more content: a well-maintained dog living a natural life, or a coddled human teenager, living a life of asphalt and electricity - so disconnected from the earth that to simply see a horse in a pasture has become an intense experience.

The second proof that "dogs, in their way, live longer than we think" came while I was watching one of those "all about dogs" shows on television. The segment concerned the question of what physical advantage allows dogs to catch things so well - frisbees, or even birds out of the sky? To answer this, a dog catching a Frisbee thrown high appeared on-screen. In slow motion, the dog could be observed tracking every miniscule movement of the Frisbee as it fluttered and flew.  The dog stood still for a moment, watching as the frisbee began to fly, then the dog lined itself up at the place where the frisbee was going to fall, not where the frisbee was, in air, as he took off in pursuit.

Picture yourself on LSD, watching everything around you unfolding as a flower unfolds, slowly over a 24-hour period. That's the way dogs experience the world. Well, that's what Rocky told me, anyway. And I, for one, believe her.