Dog-casting

Ok, the first part of this post won't really be about Louise at all, but I'll bring it around to her, promise.

As some of you know, I'm a big fan of podcasts. I listen to a lot of them, especially on my daily commute into work. CBC is a fantastic source for some of my favorite ones and one in particular, Ideas had a three part series on dogs recently. You might not be into the far ranging topics on that podcast, so here are parts one, two and three respectively. Go ahead, they are free to listen to. They might take a bit to actually load up in your browser, depending on your internet connection, but I tested them to make sure they were legit.

Now coincidentally, Apple released a software update for their iphones (my podcast delivery method of choice) and when I synched up to get the update, I was half way through listening to the third part. Something messed up with that software update such that for a podcast that was part way through (an ipod/iphone keeps track of where you are) the pointers would be messed up, reporting the podcast as complete. If I pressed play, it would pick up from this point always, and play through, but if I paused or stopped it, starting again would resume from that same point. It was kind of like Groundhog Day, but on a very small scale. I ended up listening to that same portion about five or six times in order to hear it through to the end.

I'm not one to believe in fate or such but I do believe that one is shaped by the experiences in one's life. Maybe there were parts of what I listened to multiple times from which I will draw upon in the future - who knows. What I do know is that at the time I was listening to it I had Louise with me and we were making our way into the office after visiting with a friend. I did note that I was a little more attentive to Louise and what she might want to do as we walked on some less familiar streets in downtown Vancouver.

One of the things I found interesting about the above podcasts is the notion of how a dog's experience of the world must be radically different from our own. These creatures are smell driven, not sight driven like us. As such, they most likely interpret their surroundings with a different sensibility (no pun intended). It was an interesting topic that made me look at Louise in a different light. She's quite a little individual.