Pondering along with our pets

Our pets remind us how fulfilling a slow life can be. It might be worth taking some time out to experience it with them.

Spoorthy Raman

Weekend mornings are my favourite to walk with Pippi. A sense of calmness envelops the streets as birds chirp their dawn songs. When the sun’s out, the golden rays thaw the frosted grass, laying out a wet carpet. This New Year’s Day turned out to be one such gorgeous winter morning — the snow gods had taken a break and the temperatures were mild, with the mercury veering ever so slightly to the positive side of the Celsius scale. Pippi and I headed out early in the morning for our walk. For a change, I decided to drop my routine of planning the day and instead observed Pippi’s every action on the walk, predicting what would be going on in his orange-sized brain.

Pippi mostly leads our walks; we intervene only if we need to steer him away from a potential trigger or if it’s unsafe for him to walk in a particular direction. This morning, he decided to walk towards a field close by.

As he sauntered along on the pavement, his nose was busy sniffing every blade of grass. He chewed on a couple, peed on one or two and licked a few. Did you know dogs use their tongues to better smell things they are interested in? I’m sure there were traces of pee-mails on them, which piqued his interest. I dare not guess how it tasted!

Just around the corner of the field’s entrance, Pippi’s eyes lit up and ears perked up — a cue that something extremely interesting and exciting was happening, like a squirrel running, or his canine friends in sight. But I could see nothing, or so I thought, until the fluttering wings of a critter shook a few grass blades. If they are in a calmer environment, dogs are keen observers, or so says science. Dogs tend to stare for a long time at anything that appears strange or out of the norm, trying to make sense of it in their tiny brains, found a study. When we talk to Pippi, he often tilts his head to hear us better and perhaps understand all that we tell him — and I must say he does a good job of grasping some words.

Midway on our walk are a few trees where most dogs that visit the field hang out. Somehow they all seem to find these trees interesting. When Pippi reached the trunk, he intensely sniffed for a long time and I saw a light bulb go on in his head. My best guess was that he recognised a familiar pee and seemed to be content with his feat! He continued his walk —with his head down sniffing the ground and his ears perked up to catch any weird sounds. We then arrived at his favourite spot: rotting apples strewn around tree stumps.

Pippi’s nose goes on an overdrive whenever we are here because a few mice have burrowed under the stumps. It’s a game for Pippi to sniff these holes out and spot mice. Today, he was in luck — of sorts. With his snout in one of the holes, he began wagging his tail in a frenzy and his intensely-focused eyes could probably see nothing but cues of running mice. The frozen ground, however, was too hard to dig and hence the mice-catching mission had to be aborted. Almost at the end of our walk, Pippi spotted his dad make a guest appearance on the field and once again his eyes lit up — this time with love, thanks to oxytocin, the love hormone released in dogs (and humans) when they see their favourite person. A truck passed at a distance and Pippi’s tail went up, hackles raised and his body froze — that’s how scary these vehicles are in his mind. He could have lunged and barked, but decided to let it go.

While I think this walk, like all others, was exciting for Pippi, it was weirdly therapeutic for me too. After months of hectic writing, I craved a break during the holiday season.

What better way to do that than step aside from the daily hustle-bustle and have a mindful walk on a beautiful winter morning? If you haven’t yet tried slowing down with your dogs, I strongly suggest you do. For best results, choose a calmer place that suits both of you!

Tailspin is your monthly column on everything that’s heartwarming and annoying about pet parenting.

The writer is a science communicator and mom to Pippi, a five-year-old rescued Indie, who is behind her drive to understand dogs better. She tweets @RamanSpoorthy