The Story of …
The mindful dog.
by Marti Healy
Quincy the dog takes walks. I go along with him, but only as equipment manager. I handle the baggage. I act as lookout – for cars and other dogs and horses in training, for cats on the loose and high school runners on the loose, for snakes on the path and riders on bikes, and all the what-have-yous that are likely to crop up on such excursions.
Quincy himself chooses the route for these walks – through the various back streets of the neighborhood or the horse district or the Carolina Bay. He wears a harness, but it’s mostly without a leash properly attached (that’s one of the pieces of equipment for which I am responsible).
Quincy walks with metered deliberation. He strolls. It’s a decidedly slow pace with frequent stops of subtle purpose.
It wasn’t always this way. When Quincy first moved in with cat Tuppence and me, at the already set-in-his-ways age of 8 or so, he “was walked” – on leash and under voice command, at my pace, on my route.
Basically an agreeable dog, Quincy would try to follow my lead – albeit reluctantly – the best he could. But there was lots of tugging, lots of talking, lots of encouragement, lots of discouragement, lots of pleading, lots of cookie bribes, lots of bargaining and promises and whistles and wheedling … and lots of exasperation all around.
In the end, the walks were without any real joy, without a sense of spontaneity. There was no discovering, no noticing, no awe, no sharing between us.
But Quincy is also a rather wise old dog. And there came a day when he let me know the right thing to do. I snapped off the leash and tucked it into my pocket. And I began simply walking at Quincy’s side, at his pace, leaving him to live within his own experience. I kept my words of running commentary to myself. I let him become enveloped in his own walk in his own moment in time. I released him to walk in mindfulness.
And with Quincy’s release, I unexpectedly came into my own sort of realigned understanding of living a mindful life.
When Quincy examines the sweet green smell within a pile of new grass clippings and fresh-cut branches, I believe it is solely for the thrill of the scent alone – with no memories called forth or anticipation of things to come; just pure sensation of scent. When he pauses to watch a cat cross the street half a block away, I suspect he is held captive in appreciation for its slow, deliberate, primeval animal saunter. Sometimes he stops to search out the mysteries within the depths of a cool, dark gutter drain as he feels its essence breathe out over him. Often, he becomes intrigued with crisp-edged shadows, and he sniffs at their beginnings and ends and lets the warmth of the sun stroke his back. Together we might rest ourselves for a bit on curbs, and glide our feet through mud-bottomed rain puddles.
Quincy is also quite wise about not chasing the enigmatic energy bursts of squirrels, when simply standing still in peace and watching them scurry within their own mind-games is infinitely more entertaining. He listens with intentionality to the messages whispered among leaves and bird gossip and the distant secrets of barking dogs and the nearby love songs of overhead wind chimes.
I have read at least a dozen different ways of defining mindfulness, including “mindful awareness” and “being fully present” and “paying attention on purpose and nonjudgmentally.” Mindfulness is “wordless” and “moment-to-moment” and “being open,” according to the folks who know about such things.
But I suspect there may be another definition – one that I find closer to my own heart. A friend of mine writes brilliant little stories under the collective title of a blog perfectly named “Loitering Dog.” Quincy, in all his mindfulness, is exactly that. And that, I have come to believe, may be the true essence and exemplification of mindfulness after all.
Mindfulness is a loitering dog.
© Marti Healy 2019
Marti Healy is a writer living in Aiken. She was a professional copywriter for longer than 33 years, and is a columnist, book author, and popular speaker, whose work has received recognition and awards.
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