Abby Quillen

Freelance Content Marketing Writer and Editor

Animals

4 Lessons Dogs Teach Us About Life

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We adopted a mixed-breed puppy five months ago. She’s jet black with white patches, and we named her Flower. Two little boys, a puppy, and two elderly cats make for a special brand of pandemonium — and a lot of joy. I grew up with dogs, but I’ve spent 15 years with feline companions. So Flower astounds me. “She listens! She seems to like us! We can actually train her not to do something!” Our cats, quintessential introverts, have no interest in such things.

Pets are a huge responsibility and expense. Americans spend 60 billion dollars a year on them. Lately, I’ve been reflecting on what we get from these intimate inter-species relationships. Here are a few of the lessons Flower has been teaching (or reminding us of).

You don’t need words to communicate

Dogs are experts at reading non-verbal cues and tone of voice. They watch us nearly as closely as our own infants and can supposedly read us better than chimpanzees and bonobos, our closest primate relatives. Scientists say humans and dogs evolved as companions over tens of thousands of years, and some theorize that wild dogs instigated the inter-species relationship by learning to understand our gestures.

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For a long time, people assumed dogs were not as highly sensitive as they seem but were learning to recognize a cue, such as an angry voice. However, a more recent study suggests dogs categorize humans’ varied emotional responses, which helps them attune to our moods. And the ability seems to be intrinsic (not learned). In any case, spending time with a dog is an amazing lesson in how much we communicate without opening our mouths and how much we can learn about people by paying attention.

Empathy is powerful

One afternoon on the way to the dog park, Flower was a bundle of energy. It had just rained and the winding trail was slippery. As we rounded a curve, Flower saw the gate to the park, lunged for it, and pulled me down. Flower forgot all about the dog park. She turned around, ran to me, curled into my lap, and started licking my face.

I spend a lot of time with two little boys who are still learning the ins and outs of empathy — “It doesn’t matter if you’re sad, right Mommy?” But empathy seems to come naturally to Flower. And she’s not unusual in the canine world. A dog is more likely to approach someone who’s crying than someone who is humming or talking, according to one study. Relationships — human or canine — can be challenging. A little empathy goes a long way.

Puppy Power

Movement is fun

Dogs are excellent movement coaches. Flower never puts exercise on the end of her to-do list after a litany of chores. Moving is one of her favorite things, second only to food, and she never takes for granted the simple joy of walking or running or playing ball. Her zeal for moving helps us all add more of it to our days. Moreover, she reminds us that it can be our favorite part of the day.

Categories Don’t Always Fit

Adopting a dog can supposedly ward off loneliness, not only because you have the dog as a companion, but because the dog invites more social interaction with other people. It’s true. Our walks these days are filled with happy conversations with strangers. People love dogs.

Many passersby are curious about what breed Flower is. She is about as mixed-breed as dogs get. We usually list off a few of the breeds we’re relatively certain she has — English Pointer, Australian Shepherd, etc. But that answer usually does not suffice. Quite a few people are convinced they know what category she’s actually in. From Jack Russell Terrier to Bulldog to Border Collie, we’ve heard lots of different ideas. We humans sure like our categories, don’t we? Flower’s a good reminder that dogs (and people) don’t always fit in one.

I loved having a dog companion when I was a kid, and it’s fun to see how much my boys already love Flower. (Unfortunately, our cats are not such huge fans.) Training a puppy is not easy, but it has a way of reminding us what’s important. Besides, watching Flower chase her tail never gets old.

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Finding Wildness

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“In wildness is the preservation of the world.” – Henry David Thoreau

My son didn’t want to leave the park. He tugged on my hand, pulling me toward the swings. “Let’s stay here.”

The wind was starting to blow, rain spattering our faces. “Come on. I’m hungry,” my husband called. He was already halfway down the sidewalk, dragging my son’s scooter behind him.

Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed something in the sky.

“Look at the birds,” I called.

The three of us turned and stared up as hundreds of starlings swarmed across the gray sky. They moved into a black mass, and then spread out, shifting together and apart, like dancers in a ballet. After a few minutes they landed all at once on a nearby oak tree, settling into its decaying leaves and gnarled branches, almost camouflaged, except for their cacophonous birdsong.

My husband cut across a field toward the tree. My son and I followed, the swings forgotten. We stood together, speechless, as we watched the starlings swarm into the sky and land, again and again.

It reminded me of other wild moments I’ve witnessed. Years ago, at Yellowstone, my husband and I trekked along a hillside at dawn, listening to an elk bugling. Then we glimpsed him on an opposite hillside, his muscular body and massive antlers silhouetted against the pale sky.

Another time, on a sweltering July day in Colorado, we lugged gear up a steep, rocky trail to an off-the-beaten-path campsite my husband had discovered as a kid. We made multiple trips from our car to the site. Then, just as we slumped into our lawn chairs, a brown bear lumbered into our campsite.

More recently, we sat on a jutting rock next to the Pacific watching waves roll in and glimpsed a whale a few miles from shore.

Watching the starlings was a similar experience – unexpected and wild. Except this time, we were just a few blocks from our home.

I’ve always loved going to nature – driving up mountain roads, finding wildness in alpine snowdrifts and aspen groves, atop fourteen-thousand-foot mountains, amidst old-growth stands, and on wind-swept beaches. These days, we do less of that. We ride our bikes and walk almost everywhere we go, and we usually spend our days off exploring the ten square miles of urban land where we’ve lived for almost a decade.

I miss driving into the wilderness, but I’m discovering that wildness is not something we need to drive to find. It’s all around us. Starlings swarm. Squirrels scavenge for acorns. Deer munch on our neighbors’ arborvitae. Wild turkeys wander the hills above our house. Ducks swoop through our neighborhood.

These creatures are our neighbors, so perhaps the moments when they surprise us and render us speechless are even more wild than the ones we traveled miles to see, binoculars in hand.

It reminds me of something I heard the nature writer David Gessner say in an interview. He travels around the world, experiencing nature, but some of his most wild moments have been at home.

I was with my dad when he died and heard his breathing slow. I was with my daughter when she was born, and these are wild moments too. For me, the key to wildness is its integration with our so-called normal lives.

Have you experienced any wild moments close to home? I’d love to hear about it.

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