Candida Pugh shares how dogs taught her how to stay focused on the present moment.
When I was a schoolgirl, hanging on the classroom wall was a diagram of a triangle broken into horizontal sectors. Humans were at the top, while “lesser” beings were boxed up in order of their presumed intelligence, from supposedly higher-level mammals down to reptiles. Since then, we’ve learned that crows plot vengeance over years, elephants mourn ritualistically and ants can be trained.
Whenever I hear someone refer to dogs as “little people in fur coats,” I think of that diagram. Dogs, in so many ways, are wonderful just because they aren’t people.
Like many human beings, I tend to dwell on the past and anticipate the future while my dogs dispense altogether with time. I ask Sparkle, my German shepherd, “Did you have a good walk?” and she gets excited. If I say “Charles will be home soon,” she searches the house. She focuses on what matters to her, which is the present! Too often, the present slips past me, barely noticed.
Because of their innate humility, dogs accept what the present holds. My heightened sense of self leads me to analyze the interactions I have with people. Not the case with my dogs. Rejection? What’s that? For Vela, my barky German shepherd her lack of popularity never penetrated her lovely skull. At the dog park, she pursued unrequited lovers with gusto.