Last night Cooper came in and asked to come to bed with me. Actually it was about 4:30 and I thought he needed out, but when I asked, from the depths of my pillow, he said no, he just wanted to get in bed with me.
So I scooched over and got a pillow for him and he climbed up, flopped down, sighed happily and we fell asleep, my arm thrown over his back and chest so I could pet him a bit before we both dropped back into sleep. When I woke up at 5:30, he was gone. (He gets uncomfortably warm. It would have to be about 20 degrees in the room for him to stay.)
But later, I began to think about this. He does this every now and then. But I do not know why.
Does he have bad dreams? Do dogs have bad dreams? Do they dream that their food bowls have run away, or that they have been left behind and no one comes back, or that they have taken their owners for a walk off-leash and now they cannot find them? (I dream that-- in reverse-- and it is almost always Cooper who has vanished.)
The psychologist Piaget determined somehow that small babies, when a parent leaves the room, seems to think the parent is gone permanently. I am not sure how he drew this conclusion from non-verbal babies, but it has been a long time since I read the experiment.
Do dogs think this way?
I am told dogs "live in the Now". Are we sure?
Here is Cooper on a day when I was cooking. When I cook, he flees the house. Why? Because he is afraid of the smoke alarms. When I cook, sometimes the smoke alarms go off and he leaves the house and stays away for at least an hour, no matter what the weather. I cannot coax him in, I cannot catch him, not even now that he only has three legs, he is still a lot more nimble than am I. What is he thinking? With what unkown danger does he associate the stove being on? How did he manage to figure out that the smoke alarms mean danger? If he would come right back when they go off I would think he just doesn't like the sound, but it is more than that. He associates it with something terrible. Surely a dog like this can have bad dreams.
This looks to me like an animal that has the ability to live not only in the now but in the past and in the future.
Where IS she? She left and maybe this time she won't come back. She's going to leave me with HIM. I mean he's ok and everything, but he isn't HER. Is she out someplace fooling around with those big damn..whatcallem--HORSES again? They'll eat her alive. Should I try to get out, go find her? Yesterday she left and came right back. This time it's been....damn I wish I could understand that time thing--the clock. Is that her Va---no.....
This is a dog who does not have that problem. This is a dog who I am pretty sure has no major Angst and can be said to "live in the now" which consists mainly of naps, barking at squirrels and taking things off the counters.
This is a dog who gets into the car full of hope even if we are just going to Vet, and the next time he gets into the car he will be full of hope even tho we are going to the Vet AGAIN. The only time I think he has Angst is when I roll open the door and he is at a dog show, and then he does not want to get OUT of the Van. This is the one time when I suspect he is able to think forward.
Dogs get lost because they don't think forward. It does not occur to them that they will not get home again. Most dogs. Bassets and beagles often simply backtrack home. Not always.
This is a dog who knows deep in his soul that if he disobeys something unspoken and dreadful will happen. He will not be beaten, or thrown out of a car or anything like that, but I might scowl at him.
Right now in this picture he is thinking that there must be some way of getting rid of the short-legged ones so he can have the house to himself again but by the same token he knows this is wrong-think, and is, therefore, deep in Angst.
