I imagine that travel for a dog is far less ambitious but far more fulfilling than for us humans. Dogs’ lives are far briefer than ours, more (technically) limited in what they can achieve, yet they are arguably superior in their ability to feel joy and contentment through the simplest of things. Their travel is slower than ours, more repetitive, more routine, but cherished.
I recently lost my dog Karla – a beautiful German shepherd-Singapore special mix. Her illness and eventual passing was emotionally devastating to me and in mourning her, I have now begun to think more deeply about her behaviours and what I learned from her during our brief time together on this Earth.
Not to anthropomorphise, but Karla was a very perceptive dog. She had a way of looking at you that felt deeper than a gaze, more of a connection. She would sit and watch you, patiently waiting for the signal (touching her lead) that it was time for her walk. She would not rush, nor express impatience. Yet the moment it was time, she would squeal, and despite being nine years old, would leap and bound in the air with the energy of puppy. I doubt dogs feel the same kind of wanderlust we feel as humans, but there was always a thirst to explore what lay beyond the same apartment door every day.
Karla would see a lead – designed to tether her – and would still regard it as a symbol of freedom, of the great outdoors. She was exhilarated by the prospect of a new journey, even if it was actually the same one she embarked on most days. The routine path that was set out for her, morning and night, never lost its novelty. For dogs, no walk repeats itself twice.
The same path would yield new smells every day – the subtle musk of a new dog, the rubber of a child’s shoe on the pavement, or the air, redolent of the previous night’s rain. Karla would sniff excitedly over specific spots, before quickly remarking her territory to signal her continued presence. Muzzle to the earth, or to the bark of a tree (or lamp post for that matter), she would inhale every aroma available to her, her senses attuned to every subtle change around her. Karla acted as if she was seeing the world for the first time but walked with the confidence of a canine who’d seen it all before.
If Karla encountered another dog, her ears would stand to attention and I could feel her begin to tug at the end of her lead, gasping for breath as she tried to get closer. Despite not having an ounce of aggression in her, she would let out a deep, rumble of a bark that would startle the other dog and its owner.
If they dared come closer, she’d sniff manically, ecstatic at the prospect of a new friend or perhaps an old one she’d met on a walk before. It might take a minute to detangle her lead from that of the other, but it was always worth it to see her light up from having met a new companion.
When Karla would see car door, she didn’t think of the claustrophobia of being in a confined space, or the ‘turbulence’ that comes from speed bumps and traffic lights. She saw the trees as they whizzed past the window. She felt the cold of the window as she thrust her snout against the glass, hoping to taste the air. She would grip and claw at the leather of the seat, spinning around to take in every view from every window. She would bark, whine and yelp because the anticipation of the destination was simply too hard to contain, even if it was just down the road.
In dining, the same gustatory combination of dry kibble, unseasoned meat and vitamin dust was greeted with the same excitement as a child being presented a three-tiered rainbow birthday cake. Chased with a lap of water or a chewy treat, she would lick her snout, satisfied. Yes, the novelty of a fresh steak, or the thrill that comes with the sneak of a hand under the table, offering a single French fry would always beat out the food that rested in her bowl… she would relish those moments when they could come by, but never come to expect them.
Karla’s version of travel – her daily walks – were slow, routine and unexciting to the naked eye. To us, they were sometimes a daily chore, something that goes with the territory of owning a pet, but through her eyes, they were sacred moments in her day where she could spend time with the people that she loved and explore the world around her. That is the spirit we need to remember when we ourselves return to travel.
We’ve been tethered to our homes for months, many of us having not spent this much time fixed to the ground since we first began flying at a young age. We thirst for travel again while our governments pitch us the idea that maybe travel in our own backyards might give us the same high. We know it won’t, but we may as well try anyway.
Travel has been so available to us, we feel we have been robbed of our rights to book a holiday, to the extent we’ve forgotten what a privilege it has been to experience it the first place. We assumed it would always be there and we were proven wrong. Our passports have begun to gather a thin film of dust, and each day we spend at home, we trawl social media looking for a sense of escape.
We always swear to ourselves that will we never take something we love for granted ever again, after experiencing the weight on our chest and the pit in our stomach once we realise we’ve lost something so precious. Travel will return to us again, and when it does, I hope we remember to greet it with the same love, sense of companionship and zeal as Karla did on her morning walks.
