#746: The Dog Speaks of Cognition

You wonder what I’m thinking.
When necessary, I try to be clear
and you understand my cues.
I need to eat or go outside. I want a walk.
I need a snack, damn it. Those other dogs
piss me off. I would really like to catch
that squirrel. It’s during the down times,
the quiet moments, when I see you
thinking about what I’m thinking,
trying to piece it out. When I’m sleeping,
or when I whimper when I’m sleeping,
you wonder what I dream about.
When I sit up, ears pricked, in a kind of
meditative state, you wonder what
I’m thinking. Some humans who study
us have concluded that we live in
the present moment, something you
often strive and fail to do. It’s true.
I think about the here and now,
I think about what’s interesting to me
in the here and now, mostly food, and
walks, and squirrels, the way things smell,
if I am currently comfortable or not,
if I might like to chew the end off that blanket,
if I might like to chase a ball or a stick.
I think about you quite a lot. I really do.
I wouldn’t call it thinking, really. It’s more
like feeling. For me, feeling is thinking
and thinking is feeling. Feeling is first.
I feel or sense your moods. I know,
for example, when you feel good,
or when you’re angry, or sad. I prefer
to be around you when you feel good
because that often means you will
touch me or feed me or walk me, and
I think, or feel, or sense, that if you are sad,
I can help. I don’t know why that works,
but it seems to. When you’re angry, I just
get out of the way, try to mind my own business,
visit the water dish, carry around this chew toy,
finish off the corner of that blanket, maybe work
on the other corner, fall asleep on the couch,
until whatever it is that’s bugging you passes.
And it does. It always does, sooner or later.
You wonder what I’m thinking.
I can’t really tell you because I don’t have
language, per se, like, I couldn’t just write
you a poem, but I can feel it. I can feel you a poem
and hope that maybe you’ll be able to read it,
or think it, or sense it, or feel it the way I do.