The mind's ear

Sometimes Loki hears me like he was still five years old. Sometimes without my even making a sound.

And I think the problem is that I'm getting old, I'm not keeping up with the way he communicates now with me.

There is never anything desperate in the way he chooses his own path, never any worry. Just an invconvenience, perhaps an interpretation, rarely, of a situation that his mind really is not capable of comprehending.

Other times, I think it may be his sensitivity at my urgency, more than the language, my pheremones giving off the intention of my communique.

Tonight, we walked off leash, he heeling without even a nod by me, going off only on my okay.

I sometimes wonder if he is not training me, to let him still make his own judgements. Treat his pain, give him more love and tenderness as if he were a puppy again, but let him, for god's sake, be however he feels like being.

I still regretted not taking him along today.

He knew it was Saturday, the day we always go to the dog park, and let him run generally free. He got away last time, which worries me only because of the hearing. I had to jog after him at one point. I never had to grab his collar - the ultimate indignity - but he was still indignant at my pursuit. Pushing me to the ultimate limit of my indulgence in his old age.

But it was too hot. Too hot for him to be in the car, or out on the street, walking with us.

We went for a long walk in the relative cool of the mid-morning, and he was huffing and puffing as if it were deep summer, the logarithm of discomfort rising steeply and then platueing at 75, rising sharply at 90 (depending on humidity), and beyond that entering into a real danger zone. A dog that can be out forever plowing his snout happily in the snow is never going to be comfortable in temperatures beyond something beyond the comfort level of most humans.

Humans whose instinct for survival was even more resolute, in being based on an idea of something making it worth it. Aware of their own mortality, social constructs and pantheons structuring the perception of reality, that somehow, it's worth it to struggle on.

To find that next Hindus valley. Explore the next unknown region.

CONQUER!

Or assimilate.

Or partner.

One of the hidden dimensions of our evolution that is becoming more and more patently visible is the power of cooperation.

That cooperation is more efficient than conquering.

As dogs, understanding that we offered warmth and protection, a social order that made our own more humane, established relationships with us, still ingrained even in the wild dogs of Africa, who will not attack humans, allegedly, no matter how hungry.

Comments

[Travis Hellstrom]

Thanks for your entry, I really enjoyed reading it.