What Blue and Blaze Have Taught Me About Time

Dogs carry something like 300 million scent receptors in their noses, against roughly six million in ours. Blue uses his properly.

He stops on the pavement mid stride, ears up, reading something in the wind I can't smell. I used to tug the lead and keep walking.

Now I stop too.

That's the whole practice, if I'm honest. Stopping when a Rottweiler decides something matters more than my schedule.

Blaze is the opposite animal entirely, all forward motion, straining toward whatever's next before we've finished with what's in front of us. Watching the two of them on the same lead is watching two different arguments about time.

One says wait. One says now.

I used to think I agreed with Blaze. Lately I think Blue has been right the whole time and I just hadn't caught up.

How often do I move before I've asked the question. Have I actually thought about this, or am I just reacting because reacting feels like progress.

What happens three steps past the thing I'm about to do without thinking. A dog doesn't ask that question, it doesn't need to.

I do and most days I skip it because stopping feels like losing ground.

Blue teaches me the opposite. Stopping isn't losing ground.

Stopping is where you find out what you were about to walk past.

I don't always get it right. Some mornings I'm all Blaze, straight to the door, no pause, no question.

But I'm noticing the mornings now, which is new. I'm noticing the gap between the impulse and the action and in that gap there's usually a better version of the decision waiting.

Blue is still standing there most days, waiting for me to catch up to what he already knows. I'm starting to think patience isn't a virtue you have.

It's a dog you keep choosing to walk at the speed of.

There's something right in front of me I'm rushing past today. I know it.

I'm not stopping yet, but I know it.