Conclusion first: My schedule has gotten all out of whack with travel and the holidays. This post should have been yesterday, and something else should have been on Tuesday, July 2, but oh well. Next Tuesday I’ll get back on track.
Today’s post is another excerpt from the as yet unpublished volume 2 of A Dog’s Book of Wisdom. Margaret says intelligence means thinking like a dog. (Why should dogs be any more empathetic to other species than we are?) She also says intelligence is the ability to be still and not be distracted by thoughts or emotions. If that’s true, I’m awfully dumb. Then she goes into some stuff she either made up or heard from Krishnamurti about how there’s no separation between an observer and the observed. I like this part of her essay even though I don’t really get it.
Tuesday I’ll be back with an original piece in my own voice. I’ve had a lot on my mind lately, as many of us have. It will be good to get it out and see if it’s worth keeping.
Of intelligence
By Margaret the Pug
People think dogs are stupid. I can tell by the way they talk to us. People use one voice to talk to dogs and another voice to talk to other people. This shows they think we don’t understand them, but dogs understand people well. We understand how to make them work for us.
Dogs play; humans work. Dogs are the intelligent ones. Dogs work until it’s time to play again, and most of the time we can’t tell the difference between work and play. I am a companion dog; my work is companionship. I don’t know what Tom’s work is, but by the smell of it, his work is thinking. Thinking is no work at all. Thinking is making things up. Observing is work. Observing is sensing without thinking. Observing is how two things make one new thing. The observer joins with the thing being observed — the scent of a dead squirrel, or maybe poop — and becomes one new thing that’s two old things joined together — dead-squirrel-smell-and-pug, poop-and-pug. Observing is joining together. Tom does very little observing. He thinks instead of observes, so he is always alone, even when he’s with others.
I know humans are not intelligent because they don’t act like dogs. Intelligent animals get other animals to do their work for them. I get everything I need and most of what I want from Tom. That makes me smarter than Tom. When Tom opens a can of dog food, he gives it to me, so I am more intelligent than Tom because I get the food even though he opened the can.
Humans can do many things dogs can’t but that doesn’t make them intelligent. Intelligence has nothing to do with what someone can do. Squirrels can climb trees. Squirrels are not more intelligent than dogs because they climb trees and dogs don’t. Tom can open a can of dog food. Tom is not more intelligent than me because he can open a can of dog food, and I can’t. Tom is less intelligent than me because he does things that make him unhappy and that make others unhappy. He does things that don’t need to be done. I only do what needs to be done.
Tom and his mate eat three times a day. This is not necessary. I eat twice a day. Eating three times is more work than eating twice, so eating twice is better. But I’m happy Tom eats three times a day because that means there are more scraps for me.
Happiness is being unafraid, content with things as they are, not thinking of things that are not there, and wanting no more than I can get. If Tom knows what happiness is, he forgets. I never forget. Tom wants more than he can get. I know from how he goes about his day. He gives off his restless scent all the time.
I don’t think Tom knows how to look at himself. When he’s with me, he looks at a screen, or he looks at a book. He doesn’t see how hard he’s working. When he pulls his head up from his screen or his book, his eyes are looking at something that’s not there. When he looks at me, he comes back to where he is. This is how I teach Tom to be intelligent; I smile at him, I love him, and I bring him back to where he is.
Tom gives me things I need that I can’t get for myself, like the food inside a can. I give Tom things he needs that he can’t get for himself, like the companionship of a loving dog. This is our work: to give each other what the other can’t get for itself.
Work was most of my happiness when I was young. When I was young I wanted to be in companionship all the time. I was sad when no one was nearby. Then I got tired of being sad when I was alone and learned to be a companion to myself. Being a companion to myself is like observing myself. I am both within myself and watching myself. Most of the time I look tired. I see myself and think, “I look tired. I should take a nap.” Then I fall asleep.
Bonus story: A pug, a bear, and a cowardly man
A pug and a man are walking together on a path in the woods when they come upon a bear. Both are very afraid of the bear. The man climbs up a tree to get away from the bear while the pug barks and barks and shows his pointy teeth. The bear picks the pug up in his mouth and throws the pug back on the ground. The pug is more surprised than hurt, but he learns that the bear is much stronger than he is, so he lays on the ground and pretends to be dead. The bear comes over to the pug and sniffs him many times. To the man in the tree it looks like the bear is whispering to the pug. Then the bear backs away from the pug and walks into the forest.
When the bear is gone the man comes down from the tree and rushes to see if the pug is all right. The man cries with joy when he learns the pug was only pretending to be dead.
The man asks the pug, “What did the bear say to you when he was whispering to you?”
“It was good advice,” says the pug. “He said never trust anyone who abandons you in a time of need.”
“He didn’t really say that, did he?” asks the man.
“Of course he did,” says the pug. “Bears are very smart.”
What does this story mean? It means the members of a pack make each other more intelligent or less intelligent depending on how they react to danger. When the man climbed the tree he taught the pug that he would run away when a bear came, so he could not be trusted to help the pack in a time of danger. This made the pug more intelligent. The pug taught the man that bears can talk, and of course bears cannot talk, so this made the man less intelligent.
This chapter is about intelligence, and I have gone off talking about bears and men who climb trees. I will come back to my subject. Intelligent animals act like me. I have few wants, and the wants I have are easily satisfied. I have few needs, too. I know the difference between what I need and what I want. I need food, and I want fried chicken. I don’t need fried chicken to cure my hunger. Something other than fried chicken can make my hunger go away. Even dry kibble makes my hunger go away. I don’t like dry kibble, but I still eat it because it’s dumb not to eat something that makes my hunger go away just because I don’t like it. It’s also dumb to do things that don’t need to be done or are things that don’t make me happy, like coming across a bear on a walk in the woods with a man who cannot be trusted. Do what needs to be done for others, and then do what needs to be done for yourself, and you will be as intelligent as I am.
“Intelligence is in all gods, says Plato, and in very few men.” — Montaigne
“Intelligence is in all dogs, says I, and in very few men.” — Margaret