EcoHearth Environmental Website - Best ecology websites, environmental blogs, news, activism, green jobs, green products

A reader kindly pointed out to me in response to my blog about hiking alone that I wasn’t hiking alone; I was with my dog! Her comment got me thinking some deep thoughts. Yes, I was with my dog. In fact, without my dog, I doubt I would go on the hikes I enjoy so much. Not because he offers me much in the way of protection—he’s not that kind of dog—but because I’d be, well, alone!

I’d have no one to talk to and no one to enjoy the hike with. My dog loves, loves, loves to hike. After a day of hiking, he’s a happy dog and I am a happy human. He gets to run free and sniff and roll in yucky stuff and I get to escape the endless mind circles and isolation I often feel in my daily life. We are both happy because we get to be together doing what we love.

One prescription for my own sanity is: hike often and hike long with your dog.

The fact, though, that I said I hiked alone belays a point of view that was, until graciously pointed out to me, buried deep inside me. The view that my relationship with an animal is less than that of my relationship with a human. That when I go for a hike with my dog, I think I am alone. I am not. I have his company and he has mine. We enjoy each other.

My dog knows this, but somehow I did not. My dog knows we are “in relationship.” He accepts this as his life. I do, too, but wasn’t aware. I mean, I love him. I take care of him. Still, he’s “only” a dog. He is a dog, yes, but actually without the “only.”

Pets are, I believe, one of our most direct links to nature. Because they lack—or have in much less abundance—the human ability to cultivate an ego, they go directly to the truth about living. I know dogs best and cats somewhat well, but I know that other animals also can be as “there” for their human partners.

I heard a story once about a farmer who died while out in the fields checking on his dairy cows. Hours later he was found with one of his cows, which had apparently been watching over him until help arrived. The farmer had a small herd that knew him well and that he knew well. When he died, the cows were there for him to help him in the only way they could. Yet, cows are thought of as very dumb and certainly they aren’t known for forming relationships with other species, maybe not even with each other.

My dog, too, has been there for me and I don’t believe it’s only because I feed him and he knows that I will. I believe it’s because he has a deeper and far less ego-confused sense of what is important in life. I’d distill this important-ness down to two things: connection and being there, just plain old being there.

If we pay more attention to the animals in our lives and what they teach us by just being who they are, we can learn maybe how to be with each other and with this world we live in. Meanwhile, yes, right, I was not hiking alone! My dog was with me. How lucky I am.

Help the Earth, Spread the Word: Share this article with family and friends by clicking on the "Email This" or "Share This" links below right. Then see TODAY'S TOP STORIES.

Comments (2)

Show/Hide comments

Write comment