The more dogs I meet, the more partial I become to this little grey scale body and indifferent personality that lives along side us.
I am always curious what is going on inside his walnut brain and this weekend as we took little car rides around Boise, it became clearer to me how the mechanics inside his head work.
I picture him having a little DPS (Dog Positioning System) inside his tiny skull and every time he goes on a new route, a very tangible canal is cut in the globe that rules his sense of direction. I picture it as a little Play-Dough map like what you would see in a Sesame Street Claymation sketch.
This theory explains how he can sleep in the car for hours but as soon as you take a turn down any stretch of road he has never been on before or take a different route home, he is immediately alert. I want to clarify that it is not just because the car is slowing down or the sound of the blinker has aroused him. It is something innately canine that shakes him from his restful lounging. This is the only part of his genetic heritage that still exists which is what makes this talent so extraordinary to me.
When nature calls him, he sits upon his dog throne and takes in the visuals associated with the new route, filing them away in the deep memory of his DPS. When the mapping is complete and the new route meets the old, he can relax again. He never needs to see this place again, he has catalogued the information in his walnut and now he can sleep soundly upon his dog perch until the next wrong turn.
