My dog Peanut, “sniff-walks,” and the weather

Life with an alien cartoon character

By Perry Willis

Words: 434

They call it “taking the dog for a walk.” but it’s really “taking the dog for a sniff.” The sniffs are primary and the walk is secondary. This is made even more obvious when the sniff-walk happens after rain or during wind.

I believe our sniff-walks belong to Peanut, and not to me, so I let her chart our course until or unless she wants to go somewhere that seems unwise. She mostly does a good job of navigating. She takes us from odor-locus to odor-locus along a rational path that leads us through our neighborhood on some kind of loop or figure-eight that eventually returns us home.

Unless there has been rain or the wind is blowing. Both things confuse her.

Rain spreads out the smells. Everything is scrambled. Nothing makes sense. There is no locus for anything, so she doesn’t know which way to go. There are no rational beacons to lead her through the neighborhood. She stands in one place, nose twitching, turning in circles, trying to figure it out. I indulge this as much as possible, but eventually I have to tug her in a direction that will lead back home.

Something similar happens when there is wind. There is too much information that seems inconsistent with local conditions. Odors are coming in from distant places, and from all directions as the wind shifts. She cannot make sense of it. So again she stands in place and walks in circles, as her twitching nose drinks from the wind, and her doggie brain tries to impose order on the torrents of incoming information.

Having a dog is like living with an alien (or a cartoon character). We love each other. We are simpatico. But her ways are not my ways. I have an intellect and size and strength that she cannot match. But she seems to have wisdom and equanimity that humans would do well to emulate. She also has sensory superpowers that we cannot really imagine. What is it like to smell the world with a vividness that exceeds our vision and hearing? And what feelings are conjured when rain or wind scrambles those signals?

I am in constant awe of the human-canine relationship. Among other things, it makes me wonder if there is sensory data that even both species together, and our human instruments too, cannot access. The fact that she can sniff so much better than I can, strongly suggests the possibility. We do not know what we do not know. But I know I love my Peanut.

Perry Willis was the Executive Director of the national Libertarian Party and has managed or worked on six Libertarian Party presidential campaigns. He is the co-founder of Downsize DC and the Zero Aggression Project. He also co-created the One Subject at a Time Act, the Read the Bills Act, and the Write the Laws Act, all of which have been introduced in Congress.