Walks That Love

I often receive emails from people who read my blog. They share with me the ways that they've found themselves waking up in the company of a dog. Melissa Bachynski is one of them and her recent message to me is one that I'd like to share with all of you.

Two things have recently changed in my life: first, a dear friend of mine sent me a gift of an Ipod. I'm finally in the 21st century with the rest of the world. I love listening to all types of music and now that I'm bussing to work, I can enjoy that love while in transit. The other day I was prepared with my Michael Bublé as I approached the bus stop, ready to enjoy the 20 minute wait for my connection. As I put an earphone in one ear, the woman beside me started up a conversation. So much for Bublé. Because I'm of Irish decent, I cannot pass up a conversation...ever. This woman recently emigrated from Iran and we discussed the cultural differences between her home and her experience in Canada thus far. We eventually started talking about food (primarily because it was close to lunch, but I imagine the fast-food restaurant next to our bus stop helped). She expressed disgust for fast food, but not because of the nutritional value. Instead she said, “It has no love, no attention. There is no connection between the person that made it and you. You don't even know that person. There is no love.” It struck me as an odd concept, food that loves. Her point was that the person that made the food didn't care about the person eating the food. And, given the sheer numbers of burger-toting teens at the stop, they made the food quickly without paying attention to it. She said this was why the food was so bad for us. Interesting.

What does this incident have to do with dogs and Ipods? The second thing that has changed in my life is my sweet dog; he has lost almost all his hearing and his vision is at about 50%. We are learning to cope. When I realized his hearing was going, I started to teach him hand signals. The most important one of all has been the “yeah, you're fabulous” signal. Since he can't always distinguish my facial features, the "yeah” signal (which is the ASL sign for applause) is dramatic and obvious. When I got home after my discussion with the bus-stop woman, I suited my dog up for a walk. I thought I would take the Ipod on our walk to finally indulge in my Bublé desires. I've seen many people out walking or running with their dogs while plugged in to an Ipod, and, given my boy cannot hear me babbling away to him anymore, I thought listening to music wouldn't make a difference. We stepped out the door and headed towards the park. Within about two minutes I realized my dog was heeling beside me, staring up at me with a look of consternation on his face. Something was definitely wrong with him. I turned off Bublé and squatted down, which earned me a giant sloppy lick only a Boston can deliver. He started trotting ahead of me, and then turned back as if to say, “Aren’t you coming?” It was at that moment I realized I wasn't treating our walk as an important bonding moment, but as just another thing I had to do that day. There was no love in our walk, no attention.
Once again, my dog has taught me in actions what a person told me in words...and the actions made a larger impression than the words.

I now leave the Ipod in the stereo dock for impromptu dancing sessions with my dog while cooking, as well as keeping a careful watch of those humans around me while waiting for the bus. But Bublé can always sit on pause because I don't intend to miss an important moment in which I can connect with another being in a positive way.

Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon.
Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted,
And human love will be seen at its height.
Live in fragments no longer.
Only connect...

--E.M. Forster, Howards End

The Holiday Miracle

I once erected a Christmas tree which I adorned with a whole society of little grey mice ornaments - all dressed in colorful period clothing. The dog with whom I shared my home pulled it down the first night. She decapitated the mice, undressed them, ripped body parts, and tore the tree asunder. I called in sick from work that morning and triaged the patients. I sewed and glued them back together, working them back into their tiny hats, coats, scarves and muffs. There were some casualties but I retrimmed that tree and it looked just as fine as the evening before. I woke up the next morning to the same tragic scene.

I remember being plenty mad at that dog. I'm sure I shouted and made ugly faces at her which she couldn't possibly connect to the carnage she had carried out hours before. I don't know why it didn't occur to me to close the bedroom door. I gave that tree and those cute little mice to the dog not once, but twice and because I didn't think, we both had tons of stress and upset over the situation. I was quite aware of my stress, of how bad it felt and of the need I had to relieve it. But I wasn't aware of the dog's stress and me trying to relieve mine only made hers worse.

Today's dogs are exposed to a variety of stressors that are unconsidered and therefore, invisible. They can cause dogs to live on the edges of their tolerance and coping. They include endless hours in monotonous environments, the lack of stimulation, engagement and excitement, constant punishments or negative attention, illness, injury, exposure to toxic environments and extreme stylizations that present anatomical challenges. And for many dogs, the most significant source of stress in their lives is our own.

We too are living with stressors that interfere with equilibrium. Our daily routines are often tedious, without meaning and can be quite overwhelming. Stress is accompanied by the release of hormones that excite certain systems within the body and suppress others. When it is significant enough in frequency and/or severity that the ability to cope or adapt is lost, physical, mental and emotional systems exhaust, the immune system is weakened and “adaptation diseases” arise. While promising to bring out the best in us, the added stress of the holidays can actually bring out the worst.

As our schedules change and our activities and responsibilities increase, things also change for the dog. Many will experience increased inactivation, social isolation and long hours in confinement. Strangers will arrive. Food will be left within snatching distance. New things will appear in the environment and not realizing and not being taught that they can't interact with them, many dogs will interact and this will plunge us both into stress and upset. Without thinking, our "ho, ho, ho" becomes the dog's "no, no, no."

This year, as we embark upon our traditions and contemplate our sacred connection to the wondrous essence of life, let's resolve to give the dog the greatest gift of all – our full and present awareness. Even for just five minutes here and there. If we've never seen magic, we'll see it firsthand as this simple change causes the dog to explode with possibility and crackling excitement. If we've never experienced a holiday miracle, we will when we realize that the peace, love and joy that the season promises are actually ours any time that we are present and aware enough to consciously choose them. And for the love of Dog, if the tree is so alluring that the canine in your home can't leave it alone, give it to someone who needs it and put a smaller tree on a table out of reach. (Bless you Lori for being the model of such accommodation.)

Dressing Ghosts and Goblins

I had a honcho biggie Chihuahua in my life once. He was a rugged, fearless dog and almost daily for over ten years, he followed Josh and I on hiking, climbing and mountain-biking trails. We were always in the woods, even during the winter when we'd sometimes follow deer tracks through freshly fallen snow, day and night. Josh and I would be bundled up against the cold but Kaya never was.

I put a sweater on him once. It was a fancy red sweater with leggings attached. I thought it was so cute and I had visions in my mind of how adorable Kaya would look in it. The sweater was a little tight and difficult to get on but I was too intent on my own desire to see him in it to take note of how much he disliked being handled in the way necessary to get the thing on, or to even consider his thoughts and feelings on the matter. I wanted what I wanted! After I got the sweater on him he just stood there, frozen. With lots of encouragement, he finally took a step with a front leg. It lifted up high and quickly like it was being pulled by a string. Then a hind leg raised in the same way, then the next front, then the next hind. He looked like a little red bug with fused knees doing a forced march. Josh and I nearly fell over laughing that kind of abdomen-spasming laughter that happens only rarely in life. After I regained my senses, I looked at Kaya and immediately recognized how unhappy and uncomfortable he was. He didn't know what a sweater was or why it was all over him, squeezing his beefy little body from all angles! I immediately took it off and never put it on him again. To the end of his days he would wear only his own fur as he slogged through snow and ice and endured the cold just to follow us into the wild as he did during the summer.

Kaya's few minutes of fear and discomfort did a lot for Jack. Italian greyhounds can begin to shiver when temperatures drop below 80 and they are very cute in outfits. Jack has a lot of shirts and house jammies that he wants to wear when he's cold. These are "his costumes." He also has quite a few outfits that I want him to wear but him...not so much. These are "my costumes" and for them, I have a special plan. I introduce the various parts of my costume to him dozens of times, associating them with food, fun and play and getting them closer and closer to being on in the process. I click and give him pieces of chicken liver and treat him frequently while he is wearing it but the removal of the garment is the real reinforcer. He gives me short-term acceptance of my costume and I give him its removal. By the time he is actually wearing it, he is emotionally jazzed about the process of getting into it. The costume has become associated with happy, playful interactions and with his favorite treats.

These costume-conditioning sessions are easy and they can be some of the most fun things we do with dogs. When we take the time to let the little goblin emerge willingly, the dog is having just as much fun as we are and we both have the opportunity to be completely delighted with the outcome.

Some dogs don't mind what you put on their bodies. Others will show their reluctance and insecurity in their faces. With facial expressions very much like our own, they'll look concerned and fearful. If you are planning to turn the canine in your life into a ghost, goblin, pirate or fairy princess this Halloween, there's still time to follow my special plan. Show the costume, piece by piece, clicking, treating and retreating. Touch the costume to the dog and do the same. Hold the costume on the dog longer and longer; put one leg in, snap one snap, and open and close Velcro here and there. Celebrate each step, play like a child and enjoy this time with the dog so that the dog can enjoy her time wearing "your costume."

A Prayer for Peace

I don't watch the news. I don't read the newspaper. I am training the mind and these things are not good for it. First I'll tell you how I'm doing this and then I'll tell you why and then I'll tell you what this has to do with dogs.

Through a sheer act of will I'm becoming more and more acutely aware of what the mind is doing and that allows me to operate it as I consciously choose. It keeps the mind from operating me. When I AM its supervisor, I have control over old and long-practiced habits of response; I don't have to do them any more. I can loosen the mind's restrictive and often irrational beliefs, explode its crazy biases and release its insane thirst for representations of fact – information and/or knowledge that it often identifies with so completely that it thinks it is that. I AM something much more grand and eternal than the mind's conceptual framework and the little story of "me" that it has concocted. Like Dorothy, I have seen the Wizard behind the curtain operating some complex machinery that creates and maintains an illusory reality, and every moment that I become aware, I'm tapping my heals like crazy.

Newspapers are filled with stories of greed, injustice, cruelty and savagery and these are like a drug to the mind. It will latch on to horrifying ideas and images and replay them constantly when the I AM is not supervising and willfully directing thought. This streaming replay delivers us into states of upset and enmity whether we are conscious of it or not. Stop for just a moment and see what the name Michael Vick does to the mind you're familiar with. Did it flip some switches that filled you with feeling? If it did, that body of yours is having a biological stress response and its heart and brain have already telegraphed it far and wide.

Every influence that enters the mind is immediately radiated into the noosphere, biosphere, atmosphere, geosphere—the ALL—as electromagnetic energy. When we feed the mind words like "cruelty," wretched stories of neglect, or images of dogs being horribly and brutally abused, the energy that we radiate is not harmonious. It is incoherent and chaotic. It does not resonate with our truest natures and deepest desires. These discordant emanations immediately and directly affect the mind, body and the whole of reality in some unintended and very unfortunate ways.

When our news-watching, horrifying-picture-seeing, unsupervised mind replays a reality that we do not like or want, over and over and over again, it affirms the existence of the very thing we resist. When we consciously think about what we don't want, when we see it in the mind, we feed it energy; we agree with its truth and its inevitability in the world. When we hope and wish that it were not so, the mind affirms that it is so and that it's opposite isn't and the force of our resistance and desire actually keeps what we want at bay. None of this helps us create a world in which these events are less likely to occur. It keeps us all locked in a bad dream of our own making.

To make matters worse, when we become aware of an injustice, neglect, brutality or abuse, the mind will help us to transfer the intensity of our emotions onto a perpetrator who will become a symbol of cause and guilt. We will assign to it all responsibility for the unwanted event showing up in our reality. The mind will attack the symbol again and again. Toward it, we will direct forceful feelings of hate, revulsion and contempt and we will feel right and justified to wish for its cruel punishment and even its demise. Unbeknownst to us, the identification of a perpetrator actually works against us. It feeds very strong energy to the deed that was done, the very thing we don't want. Violence doesn’t correct violence; it perpetuates it.

As part of its training, I feed the mind pictures and stories of what I do want to see in the world and direct it to have thoughts and see visions of that reality. I have to tell you that it doesn't want to do this because it is so contrary to the mind's very purpose and its conditioned and habituated history of operation. At any moment that I AM is not watching, it plays and replays its program.

For all of the reasons outlined above, I shield the mind from images and stories that represent cruelty toward animals. I don't want to expose it to the scarred and damaged faces of dogs who are fought for sport, the mutilated victims of unimaginable crimes and the emaciated bodies of animals left by people who moved on and left them. This is not an attempt to evade responsibility or languish in apathy. I AM aware that all I experience and perceive is what mind has made and I direct it so that I can use its power.

It is time that we took control of our most powerful tool and used it to create the reality our hearts desire. This is not work that lies in the future; it is an opportunity that's present now, in every moment of the living experience. It does not exist "out there" somewhere; it exists within. Let's direct the mind to think of and envision peace, safety and care for all of the creatures in the dream. Let's harmonize with the reference state of love. We may not be able to reach out and catch every hand that would strike against a dog but we do have the power to create a reality in which such acts will vanish. We can control our thoughts, our mental pictures and our feelings. With a little training, it's amazing what the mind can achieve. After all, it created the very same reality that we live in today – the one that we resist and wish was different.

Potty Humor

I belong to a number of Internet groups and forums and about a month ago a person on one of them posted a link to some of her clicker-educated dog's theatrical accomplishments. Just a couple days ago, a friend of mine who is "fifty-something" and who is not on that Internet clicker list, or any list for that matter, and who does not know the person or the dog, told me about this very funny video she saw recently. Two dogs are sitting together when someone asks "who farted?" and one dog points to the other. That was Chris Puls' canine partner Coyote! You can find his medley of tricks on her YouTube channel, click here.

That video sure got around in a month and I'm certain it's because of that little "who farted?" piece at the beginning. Why is it that we are so in love with potty humor? You'd think that we would grow out of it but I guess we never do. I have to admit that right after watching Chris' video I got an idea to teach a similar bit to Jack – our unique little version of potty humor that's just slightly beneath our sense of dignity and style. It involved a hind leg lift – his, not mine.

I contemplated how I could set up an education session in which Jack would voluntarily lift a hind leg and I could click then reinforce it. I got him moving around using hand-targeting but we were not connecting on the idea. I stopped to rethink my education plan and realized that when we wipe paws at the front door, Jack raises his hind legs as I approach them with the towel. So I started to teach the lift by first moving a towel toward his hind leg (he is left-pawed so I began on that side), clicking and reinforcing even the slightest raise until the leg could be cued up without the towel. I'm chaining another behavior to the leg-lift now and will film the whole thing when it's finished. You may want to subscribe to Jack's video channel so you can see it when it's available.

But I didn't write this article to make a point about shaping Jack into a hind leg lift. And I didn't write it to examine our attraction to scatological humor. I wrote it because I've noticed that so many of us seem to approach our education sessions with dogs as though we're preparing for an important exam or global competition. We are often too success-driven and serious to have fun and it's pretty certain that if we aren't enjoying ourselves, the dog isn't very likely to either. A dog can learn so much more if he's having fun and we can have so much more fun – something we seem to forget to do as we mature. Maybe that's potty humor's special appeal. It gives us a way to giggle like children and have fun without having to actually do anything or spend any money.

So to my friends and followers I issue this Potty Humor Challenge...Come up with an idea for a hilarious little trick with a theme that will make people laugh out loud. It doesn't have to be off-color but if it is everyone will love it! Start thinking about how you can shape, click and treat your canine student to perform it and then get started. When you have a finished product, post a link as a reply to this article. Here are the rules: You must giggle like a child, thoroughly enjoy yourself and make sure the dog is having as much fun as you are – even more. After all, he can keep right on learning for the rest of his life and he will if you make learning fun.

Black Dog Syndrome

Throughout ancient mythology and folklore dogs are commonly associated with death, as guides of the spirit or guardians of the underworld, but the black dog holds a special status as a universal symbol of malevolence and death. Black Dogs are phantoms, ghostly apparitions who appear at night on dark lanes and foothpaths, in thunder storms, at crossroads and gateways and at places of execution. They are said to simply vanish or fade from sight and to disappear into the earth or in a flash of light. They sometimes walk on their hind legs and through solid objects and no one dares to venture past them; they are associated with the Devil and if they cross your path at night, they may set you ablaze.

In some places the spectral Black Dog is known as "Shuck" and is said to be headless. Shuck or "Shock" is derived from the Old English scucca, meaning 'demon.' They were also called Black Shag, Trash, Skriker, Padfoot, Hooter and Barguest – from the German bargeist or 'spirit of the funeral bier.' In 1127 big and loathsome Black Dogs were seen with black hunters who were riding black horses and goats. Such packs of spectral hounds—with or without hunters—are reported to have been seen all over Europe, and are generally known as the Gabriel Hounds or Gabble Retchets – from an old word for 'corpse.' Thought to be the restless dead or the souls of unbaptized children, these phantom black hounds were huge, with big eyes that glowed in the dark.

Some people deny the existence of what is referred to as "black dog syndrome" – a term that has become common in animal shelters. It predicts that dogs with black fur will languish without attention while dogs with lighter fur not only get attention, they get adopted. And black dogs get the lethal injection and an end to their lives. This does happen and it happens in shelters everywhere and people who are partnered with large, black dogs will tell you that others don't receive them with the same eager affection they do smaller dogs with lighter fur coats. What is it that operates on adopters as they go down a row of cages, passing by those that contain black dogs? Are myth and folklore a part of our genetic make-up, perhaps somehow encoded in our DNA? I suppose that's possible but I think that something much more simple and basic influences us. I think it is a single, powerful word.

From Old English, the word 'black' was first associated with dark or malignant purposes in 1583. It is defined as a color lacking hue and also as gloomy, pessimistic, dismal, sullen, hostile, threatening, evil, wicked, deliberately harmful and boding ill. It indicates disaster, misfortune or potential danger and the illegal and misleading, treacherous, traitorous and villainous. It symbolizes ambiguity, secrecy, and the unknown. It is equated with the sinful, inhuman, fiendish, morbid, grotesque devilish, infernal, monstrous, atrocious, horrible and nefarious. Black has come to symbolize death, mourning and bereavement. Bad guys wear black hats while good guys wear white ones and villains are dressed in black. Black magic is destructive or evil and black days are sad or tragic, like the Black days in 1929 when the Stock Market fell and fell again. This word has a lot of baggage and a lot of power.

As our eyes fall upon a black dog, we don't consciously run through these associations – they act upon us behind the scenes, unconsciously, and this is exactly how we relate to most of our waking experiences in life. Our minds are full of illogical and superstitious beliefs and some, while seeming completely rational to us, can be truly insane. I encountered a man walking two Yorkshire terriers a few days ago. When they saw Jack, both strained on their leashes to get to him. The man began to shout "No Running!" as one little dog sounded the telltale honk of a collapsed trachea. The three dogs circled and sniffed. The man grabbed the honking dog, opened her mouth and forced his very large finger into it and down her throat. She squirmed in distress. It didn't help her but somehow, he thought it would.

Have you ever really examined the beliefs you hold about dogs? I admit that this is hard to do without bias and prejudice but if you could do it you'd probably be humbled and amazed. Have you ever become fully conscious as you interact with a dog to learn what you are thinking about in that instant and to see what those thoughts would have you do next? Some of us have, of course, but we don't do this routinely. We don't do it very often with family members, friends or co-workers either. That's just the way we roll!

In The Conceptual Dog, readers will practice a type of hyper-awareness – the kind that dogs still employ. We'll set our determination to make conscious living a habit. We'll start noticing and controlling what we think and be in control of how we react, and we'll stop leaving our minds to the influence and energy of the unexamined words, thoughts and beliefs that lead us into enmity and conflict. We'll make sure that every interaction we have with a canine is compatible with our truest natures and this will naturally honor theirs. Basically, we're going to begin to wake up. The dog has been waiting a long time for this and it can't happen soon enough!


(c) 2009 Madison Moore, The Conceptual Dog. All rights reserved.

Curious Reality

I have gotten so many responses to my posts about non-verbal communications with dogs that I decided to provide some excerpts from The Conceptual Dog to enhance our understanding of how such an ability is not only normal and quite natural, it's something we can all experience.

Electromagnetic Harmony

Consciousness is a quality that lacks any clear and collaborative definition, its neurological basis is unknown, but it is measurable, at least in part, as electromagnetic energy. When we think, whether or not we are conscious of our thoughts, we produce energetic emanations that are measurable. What we say and think about provokes negative and positive feeling responses that are communicated throughout the body via electromagnetic field interactions. The structures that originate these electromagnetic waves are the brain and the heart. The heart generates the body’s most powerful and extensive electromagnetic field – estimated to be 5,000 times stronger than that of the brain. It has been found to have its own “brain” which enables it to independently learn, remember and make decisions. Research demonstrates that the heart’s pulsing waves of energy affect the body’s organs and influence the function of higher brain centers involved with perception, cognition and emotional processing. These waves of energy change as our thoughts and feelings change. When we have thoughts that inspire feelings of frustration and anger, the heart’s rhythmic pattern is erratic, disordered and incoherent. When we have thoughts that lead us to feelings of love, peace, joy and appreciation, its pattern is smooth, ordered and coherent. And in this state of coherency or electromagnetic harmony, our physical and mental functions are enhanced; the body’s systems show an increase in efficiency and compatibility. Our perceptions of stress decrease while our emotional balance, mental clarity and cognitive and intuitive acuity increase. We experience a marked reduction of internal mental dialogue and greater awareness of and sensitivity to others.

This state is referred to as "psychophysiological coherence” – the harmonious nature of mind and body and as we will soon see, the effects of our words, thoughts and feelings reach beyond our physicality.

Where is Mind?

Humans and canines inhabit very similar physical structures; both have hearts and brains. And both species demonstrate thought, perception, memory, imagination, reason and understanding – this generally describes “mind.” Most people believe that there is a distinct difference between body (or matter) and mind. In the philosophy of mind, this is known as dualism. But a growing body of evidence from multiple fields of study demonstrates that mind and body are not separate. The mind, previously thought to be focused in the head or even to be the brain itself, has been found to actually disburse throughout the body by way of signal molecules to which most of our cells are receptive. Our thoughts can also transfer by means other than the five classical senses. There have been many reports of instantaneous non-verbal communications between humans, between humans and animals and between animals. We can now operate computers, wheelchairs and artificial limbs using only our thoughts. This might suggest that things other than bodies, including the “space” in between things, is also mind or receptive to mind. In fact, modern science seems to be arriving at realizations that ancient societies recorded on stele and in pictograms, creation myths and sacred texts. There aren't separate "things" here, each possessing a separate and individual "mind."

One or Many?

It was once believed that consciousness was a secondary phenomenon of material reality. In other words, it emerged from materiality or existed as a result of bodies and things. It is now understood to be the field of energy that is antecedent to all phenomena – coming before, as source. Therefore, mind and body are manifestations or expressions of a single, all-encompassing field of conscious energy. We constantly affect this field with our words, thoughts and feelings, feeding it waves of coherent and harmonious energy or incoherent and chaotic energy. In fact, the effects of our verbal, mental and emotional creations can be measured some distance away from the body and they have been found to have an immediate impact upon the inert things and living beings within that distance. In a very real sense, as Nicola Tesla suggested in the late 1800's, our bodies simultaneously act as energy transmitters and receivers.

Over the past 300 years, our understanding of the universe as an entirely physical phenomenon has changed. Quantum physics has demonstrated that matter can be simultaneously defined as solid and as an immaterial force or field of energy. "Things" are nothing more than waves of possibility until they are observed by a conscious being when they "collapse" into space-time phenomena. Reality became quite curious with the discovery that essentially, there is no distinction between something we think of as real and the space between “real” things. Within the scientific world, the duality of mind and matter as separate constructs has collapsed into singularity. All known phenomena are actually waves of unlimited potential, existing in multiple places at once, denying the laws of the known reality. We and the world we inhabit are a web of interconnected and inseparable energy patterns. In this understanding of reality, there would be no such thing as a separate or individual “part.” There is no difference between a thought form and a human form. All are waves of energy. Albert Einstein recognized that energy and matter are the same when he concluded that E = mc2 (energy is matter or mass multiplied by the speed of light squared). Max Planck, the Nobel-Prize-winning father of Quantum Theory, describes all matter as originating and existing “only by virtue of a force…we must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind."

We arise from a creative and conscious field of energy and we influence it. Our current ability to know the full range of that influence is limited by the limitations of our current measuring capabilities. But scientists, spiritualists and metaphysicians agree with ancient understandings – our thinking, feeling energy emanations extend every "where" and to All - to beings, things and no-things, to the whole of the universal reality. There is one mind here, a unitive force imagining.

Our material-reality worldview issues from the concept of a mechanical universe of “things” reacting in response to certain immutable laws. We perceive a subject-object split and understand ourselves to be separate from all else. Our adherence to these tenants has erased our ability to perceive the interplay between our thoughts and feelings, this conscious field of energy and the world of matter. It has detached us from the divine energetic essence of our reality. It has created in us a separation from nature, from animals, from other humans and from all else. Science proves the existence of a single unitive force that creates the world and gives it meaning. But we have gotten into the habit of "knowing" by looking outside ourselves. We gain "information" about the dog through the flat reality of a computer screen and the pages of a book. We develop understandings and interpretations of the dog that are developed and guided by conceptual understandings and by rational thought and inference and all of this relies on what’s already “known.” We follow our avatars of canine behavior and education philosophy and application and all the while, the real master lies prone at our feet, waiting for interaction.

Other ways to "Know," "Be" and Gain Wisdom

We seem to have forgotten that "knowing" can arise through introspection – a reflective looking inward, and through intuition or quick and ready insight. It can be gained through inspiration – the divine influence and reception of sacred revelation. These origins of wisdom become acute when we are willing to release our propositions of fact – our coveted beliefs and the things we think we know, and when we enter states of psychophysiological coherence or electromagnetic harmony. They can become acute when we practice them and when we train our minds to be receptive to them. They are not weird or magical powers to which only gifted individuals have access. They are natural and organic, ancient and innate. And it is through them that we can experience unity, oneness, the one mind and...the genuine dog.


(c) 2009 Madison Moore, The Conceptual Dog. All rights reserved.