Looking Back: Salon

“I don’t feel lonely when I’m around them,” he says. “But I love also listening to them. I always make sure I spend some time just seeing what they’re really doing. Especially outside, you know, when you’re alone with them. Because so many people including myself fill in a whole vocabulary for them that is ours and not theirs. I remember spending some time for the first time with Man Ray, my first dog. I didn’t talk that day. I just listened to what he was listening to, the whole aura of smells and sounds and sights and things that he was picking up on during that day. Most people who have dogs see them as their dogs: ‘Come on, boy,’ or ‘Fetch’ or pat, pat. But they’re really teeming with their own thoughts.”

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Comments

[JOLENE WRIGHT]

THis makes me miss my first Weim, Rasta dog. We always just sat and listened. I remember the first time we set out on our first road trip. Somewhere in West Virginia (going out to my brothers wedding right after my deployment to Iraq). We were sitting on a log listening to the creek side. Rasta dog was panting and I told him to listen...his ears perk up and he just paused. He senses were always about 30 seconds before mine would kick in!