Allying with Nature Part 2

I know my dog Diamond has consciousness. She has a real personality and tells me what she wants in many ways by her body language and in her various tones of barking and whining intonations. Miss Priss licks the fridge with her eyes to me cueing me to open the door when she wants a snack and points to the cheese & lunch meat drawer with her nose. Funny Dog!

As she lounges on my ottoman in my office, she looks in the direction or stands in front of the closet that houses her dried chicken treats. If I don’t comply she will stare at the back of my head until I feel her gaze and turn around, then she’ll give me the paw and a voice intonation of her desire for a treat-treat. She also acts as my moderator or nanny. She pushes my hand off the mouse when I am on the computer for too long and when I am up too late writing, she stands at my doorway sleepy eyed whining as she yawns reminding me that at 3am I should be sleeping. She might join me, jump up on the ottoman and wait until I go to bed.

When she wants to walk she looks and pauses at that the closet door where her leash is, otherwise she expects to walk after I have done my stretching exercise routine. She is very attuned to time & when I tell her we will walk in an hour she comes back in an hour to the dot. I am always amazed.

She nudges my leg with her stuffed toy for me to play with her and tells me when she wants to be massaged or needs affection even though she gets more than she wants. I can’t help myself – she is so soft, fluffy and cute. Muah, Muah, Muah!

I adore my Wichicki and treat her as I like to be treated, like a Queen. She knows I wholly respect her and she rarely gives me trouble save some food wars. Daddy has spoiled her with steak. Everything else is inferior and she prefers her food cut up in small pieces and enjoys most being hand fed. These are the problems of human spoiling. I don’t let her hunt ducks, even though I have pulled a few out of her mouth, so what else am I to do? Girl needs her meat, but she loves buttered greenbeans like Mommy and will eat an entire bowlful if I hand feed her. She’s a piece of work!

I have a prep-walk song to gear her up as I put on my sneakers. She goes wild shrieking full of kisses to my face and barks with glee at the opening of the front door. Then, just before converging onto the community pathway from our house I allow her to choose the direction she wants to go. I used to impose my will uncreatively and always walk in one direction never crossing the street to visit different lakes. In other words, I was boring and she thought so too. It was only until I discovered that her sudden plopping on the grass facing the direction she wanted to go was not because she was thirsty or tired, but that she wanted to stop and cross the street to visit another lake for a dip or chase a scent. Finally getting it, I now seek to make each walk a new adventure and take different paths and allow her to experience the lake and animal life.

We have so much fun that we walk rain or shine. She loves the rain and thunder crackles and darts outside gleefully running in circles and barking at the sky doing her rain dance. She expresses upset when I am away for too long, only a few hours and upon my return she whines with great relief & licks me robustly toppling me over with her exuberance. I am her primary human & she owns me …LOL. These are only a few experiences, but clearly animals have emotions and a capacity for thinking beyond the instincts that are Nature to all animals, even human-animals.

After 4 years we have developed an interesting telepathic rapport that I have tested and tested over again. She reads my mind & understands things that pertain to her directly in my thoughts and language. She know when I am talking about her. She is my utmost dear, my warrior protectress and mostly, she helps me stay grounded and to stay open to spontaneous life and simple love. I love my Wichiki furkid, the unbridled joy of my life.

Alisa Battaglia
Weston, Florida  2008