What Dogs teach us (1) — How to appreciate the present moment

There are many things that we could usefully learn from dogs. Living and finding joy in the present moment is one. This morning’s dog walk, like every day, begins with a flurry of excitement. It doesn’t matter that we have done the same thing hundreds of times before. Every day is a new adventure for Chico the Chihuahua.

We run round and round, check the window, check the door, bark a bit, run again, pause for harness and lead and then we are ready for our new day’s adventure.

For me it is not new and hardly an adventure. Every day we exit the front door, go down the steps, turn left along the street, left again, up the hill and round the corner, past the Australian Shepherd barking behind the gate, under the trees with their hanging lianas , turn right, up the hill again until we reach the top and the shrine to ‘La Virgen de Guadalupe’, Patron of Mexico.

Yet, for Chico, every step is like being in a new world. All the yesterdays are forgotten and the only thing of any importance is the here and now. Left and right, forwards and backwards, tracking and chasing, finding delight at every turn. Yet most of what excites Chico is invisible to me. Chico and I seem to be walking along the same street at the same time but not really. His is a world of smells, sounds and tastes that I simply cannot perceive but are nevertheless real and present. We are living parallel versions of reality, each one ‘correct’ but neither one ‘complete’. And I stop and think how often this happens in our human relationships. How many fruitless arguments arise from failing to recognize our parallel versions of reality.

Until suddenly, during one of Chico’s many stops, I also stop and look down. There, at my feet, is a beautiful sight. The overnight rain has left tiny water droplets along the blades of grass and then suddenly, as the sun rises over the hills, they start to shimmer and glisten in the morning light, bringing life and joy to this new day.

Chico has stopped to sniff and taste the moist grass, also seeming to find pleasure in the damp smells of the morning. Especially now, after many months without rain, having wet grass to enjoy is a pleasure indeed.

Without Chico to guide me, I might have walked past without noticing this microcosm of life, beauty and joy. As so many others are doing, walking and driving past even as we stop to admire and I take the photo.

Chico and I retrace our steps. Chico continuing to explore with undisguised excitement and joy and I in more reflective mood. An unremarkable grass verge by a road I have walked a hundred times has suddenly become a symbol of the life, beauty and joy to be found in all our natural surroundings if only, like Chico, we take the time to stop, look and appreciate. And somehow, my day is already better. As the Welsh poet William Henry Davis tells us in his poem ‘Leisure’: “What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare.” Thank you, Chico.