Do Dogs Feel It When Time Stands Still?

People say dogs have no sense of time. I search my memories for proof of this but right now, I think only of our current dog, Nugget. She’s at home in her crate.

Today, we have human-only places to be.  

“She can hold it,” I reply, in response to questions about her bladder and bowels. And she can. She does so for up to 11 hours each night. 

“What do you think Nugget’s thinking now?” Tucker asks. “She’s probably sleeping,” I reply, but wonder myself. Can she sense that we’re gone for longer than we’d planned? 

Do Dogs Feel It When Time Stands Still?

People say dogs have no sense of time, and in part, I believe this at least in the sense that they don’t know time the way we do. Able to tick the minutes and days off.

Still, she knows the difference between moments alone and ones spent playing and snuggling with her humans. Certainly, the difference between nighttimes spent with a 10-year-old and his dreams are time spent cozier than the seconds or hours she waits for her two-legged upright family members to return home.

I Am A Hostage To Time And Calendars

Most days, I’m time’s hostage. I set calendar reminders today for events on tomorrow’s calendar with their own alerts to remind me. Five staggered alarms wake up me up (because who doesn’t need six more minutes of sleep?), and another seven alarms for post-breakfast teeth and hair time before school. 

We have a cringy song we sing. “Teeth and hair, teeth and hair,” set to a YouTube video song he found years ago that I won’t subject you to. “Cringy” is a great word though, and one which I’m told is no longer cool. When it comes to phrases and stages, time moves too quickly. I wish it’d stand still more often.

People Say Dogs Have No Sense Of Mortality And I Think They’re Wrong

People say dogs have no sense of mortality, but I think they’re wrong. Stories about dogs crawling into the woods to die alone are spun and respun from one generation to another. The dogs I’ve been lucky enough to have loved me have hung on to life, for me. Like Chief, my rescue dog who really rescued me.

Dogs are unselfish and continually try to teach us what we’re so desperate to know. They guide us into understanding the most important thing is the gift of moments. The ones in which time stands still. Welcomed touches and snuggles, and days or minutes spent playing catch outdoors as the sky fades from yellow to pink to when we can no longer see the ball. 

When Time Stands Still

I am the most alive when time stands still. My soul expands under a stary night sky when I grow 1,001 new realizations inside. When I know exactly how small and large I truly am.

It can happen underneath a canopy of lights, made and strung by humans, too.

When Time Is Still

Time is still when the love of a dog keeps your feet warm on the couch, and when she’s so happy to see you after five minutes or five hours that her entire body wags.

As we remember the one who was so much more than a dog, and celebrate the love story that is a boy and his dog.

It stands still as the news we’ve waited for comes with a doctor appearing through a door.

When our child stands after falling.

It happens as we wait for him to get on stage at preschool graduation.

We recall time and places we spent minutes and hours so powerful and unique sharing ourselves that there’s not a word to describe them.

Sharing our story in front of strangers.

At writing retreats, when our hands shake so badly that we know we’ve accidentally hooked a memory that will guide us because it hasn’t destroyed us even though it had the power to do so.

Time stops when our phone rings showing a number that hasn’t dialed you in 20 years. That call can lead to butterfly magic though, spent with grieving mamas.

When we see three moving dots on a text we’re unsure of having sent. 

We’re unaware of seconds ticking when we see humanity at its best, and when we’re so engrossed in a paragraph or scene that we’re no longer aware of our limbs. 

The thrill of new love whispering in our ear, as we notice every single detail around us in less than a second. 

The moments when time stands still are the ones in which we grow. When we’re at our very best, and have the most potential for living life in the next minutes and years. 

This has been a Finish the Sentence Friday post, using Mardra’s talented brother’s photo (the ones of the lights above).