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Speaker 1: Welcome to the old Behave show.
Speaker 3: I'm Pet Life Radio. I'm your host, Arden Moore.
Speaker 1: Now gonna just say it, Socrates, just move over, sit
and stay our camou. Hey you too, Cans. You know
our special guest is about to unleash a big revelation.
Speaker 2: Dogs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, dogs are natural and wonderful philosophers.
Speaker 3: Now we can learn a.
Speaker 1: Lot from our dogs if we just stop yapping and
start paying attention to them. So please welcome to our show.
The author of a new must get booked. It is
called The Word of Dog. Please welcome Professor Mark Rowlands. Welcome,
Welcome Professor Mark.
Speaker 4: Thank you Auden then, thanks for having me. I'm delighted
to be here.
Speaker 1: Hey, pat pals, it turns out that Mark is the
chair I mean that's another word of saying top dog
of the philosophy department at the University of Miami in Florida.
He's also a lifelong advocate and supporter of dogs. We're
going to find out how dogs are natural philosophers. We're
going to take a quick break. So sit, stay, we'll
be right back.
Speaker 5: Time for a pause.
Speaker 2: Four very ones, actually sit and stay, all behave We'll
be right back.
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Speaker 2: Let's talk pets on petlifradio dot Com. All behaviors back
with more tail wagging ways to achieve harmony of a
household with your pets. Now back to your fetching host
America's pet ed You, Jayner Arden More.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the old Behave show on pet Life Radio.
Speaker 3: I'm your host, Arden Moore.
Speaker 1: Our special guest is Professor Mark Rollins.
Speaker 3: Check him out.
Speaker 1: He's at the University of Miami in Florida. He has
very very very strong typing thinkers. He's written almost two
dozen books and his latest book, it is called The
Word of Dog. What our canine companions can teach us
about living a good life? And I hope, Professor Mark,
that you're gonna get a little inspiration. Credit to your
German shepherd Shadow.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: No, Shadow is the one who got me thinking about
the stuff which eventually turned into this book. It all
started really on a daily walks. There's a canal that
runs behind my house and we go out there every
day and lined up along the bank in the mornings
will be iguanas, a various types, lined up at fairly
regular intervals, and Shadow will charge off hundreds of the
yards up the canal. The iguanas peel off into the water,
swim to the other side, and then stay over on
the far bank for the rest of the day. But
then nighttime is apparently a time when iguanas forget things,
because the next morning they'll be back on our side,
lined up, ready for the whole.
Speaker 1: So you're saying that iguanas have short term amnesia.
Speaker 4: Short term amnesia, or short term memory.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure where I do sense from your book
you have a little soft spot for these green iguanas
because you've named a few. Give people some of the
names that you've named, because you've seen these guys and
you've got some clever names for them.
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, there was there was Cocky, who was always
the last. He was very, very confident, always the last
to jump in.
Speaker 1: He's probably going.
Speaker 4: Shadow, yeah, pretty much. And then there was Bolt, who
was named because unfortunately had a he had cross bolt
crossbow bolt sticking out of his ribs. Didn't seem to bother.
Speaker 1: There's your British hum coming out. Okay, keep going.
Speaker 4: But my favorite was Big Pappy. He was huge, you know,
he was five to six feet long. I thought he
was a gator when I first saw him out of
the corner of my eye. You know, I mean by
the frights, But yeah, I did come to think of
them as an our iguanas you know, so so name
naming them was a natural extension of this.
Speaker 1: Well, your book is called The Word of Dog, and
I'm a big Mark Twain fan, and I know he's
been quoted as saying the dog is a gentleman. I
hope to go to his heaven and not man's. I
want to ask you. You quote in your book, you
quote the Greek philosopher Socrates, you quote Albert Camu, You
talk about a lot, and I'm like, oh my gosh,
my brain is hurting. But I read your book, But
what is it about dogs, and specifically your German shepherd Shadow,
that did inspire you to take a pause, not a paw,
a pause and say, you know what, they're natural philosophers.
What do you mean by that?
Speaker 4: Well, on the when Shadow was doing his daily daily
trick of exiling the iguanas. It struck me after a while,
because you know, wheels turned slowly sometimes. But after a
few years of doing this, it struck me that, well,
this is a lot like the myth of Sisyphus. So
Sicypus was a mortal.
Speaker 1: There is I said the wrong word. I was doing
a sexually transmitted disease, syphilis. But it is correct to
pronounce what.
Speaker 4: Yes, sisypus syphilis. That would have been a different, different story,
in a different moral way. So Sisyphus, I agree to
be getting it wrong now saying the wrong word. So
Sisus a mortal. He offended the gods in some way,
and they punished him by making him roll a large
rock up a hill or forever when it when the
rock gets the top, he gets the top, the rock
rolls back down, he starts all over again. So it
struck me that this, this activity of shadow, was very
much like Sisfus. No matter how many times he exiles
the iguanas to the other side, the very next morning
they're back again and he has to do this thing.
Or now, interestingly, sisy Us when he when he's brought up,
is brought up as the sort of the epitome of
a meaningless existence, just repetitive activity that eats nothing, aims
only in his own continuation. But it struck me, and
this was the intuition that that made to write the book.
I think ultimately this this was this was Shadow. This
was the best part of Shadows Day. This was the
most meaningful part of Shadows Day. So the idea was, well,
if Shadow can find meaning in this, then he must
in some sense have solved the challenge of Sisimus, even
though he had no idea that such a challenge existed,
because he is, of course a dog, and so so
so I was. I became obsessed with how he managed
to do this. Well, what's the difference between Shadow and
us such that he could find meaning in this activity
whereas for us it would be the epitome of a
meaningless life.
Speaker 1: Well, you also talked about when your boys were younger.
You would say this, Shadow, Hey, Shadow, time to pick
up my son at school. And he wasn't going to
a dog park, he wasn't getting one of those nice
little frosty dog things at Starbucks. He would tell us
about that, because it was just to go pick up
your son. Yeah, there was no Benny really for Shadow,
other than what so tell us about that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, he's lying right here next to me.
Speaker 1: Actually he's telling you to say, I hesitate.
Speaker 4: To other of those words, because but no, I would say, Shadow,
do you want to come with? And then you start
bouncing around, you know, throwing himself, hurling himself around the house.
Sometimes he managed he'd find his leash, and sometimes he'd
manage to leash himself by tossing it up in the
air and inserting his head you know in between.
Speaker 1: Well, that's a German shepherd.
Speaker 4: They're smart and so and he knows, as you say,
he is smart. He knows because he's been doing he'd
been doing this videos. Nothing interesting was going to happen.
Weren't going to any dog parks, weren't going for a
run or anything like that. We're just going to drive
across Miami, pick up my son and come back. And
that was it. But you would think, you know, the
greatest thing in his whole life had just happened to him.
Every time I said this, and I thought, well, that's
that's interesting. Why can't I feel like that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is just pure joy, pure bliss, absolutely, And
it wasn't with big expectations, right.
Speaker 4: No, I mean Shadow is a smart dog, and he
knows what's coming next. He knows exactly what's coming next.
But it's this this ability to take a best This
was marginally positive. He was getting out of the house
for a while. He could have a look out of
the car windows. We drove. Marginally positive. But it's this
ability to take pleasure in the such delight in the
marginally positive. That's what interested me, because it seems that's
something we've struggled to do. I was struck. This is
a saddest sort of example, but I was struck recently.
Back in April of last year. I was out running
with Shadow and he he gave a lot. We were
a couple of miles away from home. He gave a
loud shriek, dropped to the floor, and his back legs
will completely paralyze. The that things of the spinal embolisms
or a bit of card lidge had worked as way
into his blood supply to his spine, and the result
was he was He was paralyzed for about five minutes
or so. And the thing he did when this happened
always kind of struggle with me, because I think it's
it's again. It speaks to the idea of the marginally positive.
And so when he fell, he was lying in the
sun and Miami's son, you know, unpleasant for a dog.
So what he did was use his He wouldn't let
me anywhere near him because he was he was terrified.
But he used his front legs to drag himself into
the shade about twenty feet into the shape.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 4: And what's the sort of guiding kind of theme, Well,
it's it's okay, this is awful. Right, I'm paralyzed. I
don't know what's going on, but at least in this minute,
I'm marginally better off than i was in the previous
minute because I'm out of the son. I think there's
something too that that humans can and probably need to learn.
Speaker 1: I think so too. Hey, we're chatting with Professor Mark Rollins,
and he is at the University of Miami. He's written
a number of books. It just came out. It's called
The Word of Dog. What our canine companions can teach
us about living a good life? Lord, we need our
dogs more than ever now. So we're going to dive
in a little bit deeper because there's like basically like
four tenants or four points that we might have the
good professor identify. But we're going to take that quick break,
so sit stay. We'll be right back.
Speaker 3: Time for a walk on the red car.
Speaker 2: But of course all behave. We'll be backing off flash
right after these messages.
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Speaker 1: Let's talk past it. Let's done.
Speaker 5: Pet Talk about Life Radio, Headline.
Speaker 2: Radio, Petlight Radio dot com.
Speaker 6: Hi, this is Lily Tomlin and I invite you to
listen to the Old Behave Show with ardenmore on pet
Life Radio.
Speaker 2: We're back from the lot. Just check the paper and
we had our record showing at the box the letterbox
that is now back to Oh Behave.
Speaker 1: Here's Arden, welcome back to the Old Behave Show on
pet Life Radio.
Speaker 3: I'm your host Ardenmore.
Speaker 1: Our special guest is Professor Mark Rowlins, and he is
at the University of Miami. He's written a number of books.
The latest is called The Word of Dog. I can
just see now everybody getting tattoos now your inspiration. But
Professor Mark, you talked about the fact that there are
like four tenants. Maybe maybe I'm using the wrong word,
but you say dogs are natural philosophers because and I
want you to explain that and then we'll go to
the other three if you don't mind.
Speaker 4: Yeah, originally Sogrity said dogs are natural philosophers, but I
think he was just joking. It was a bad pun
on So's part. But I think there's something to it. Actually, yeah,
I do too. And it's not that they hell, let's
do a bit of philosophy, And it's not like that.
It's it's rather that in the way they live, they
can help cure certain certain philosophical afflictions that have come
over us if you like philosophy. Philosophy is a bit
like pavo, you know, But whereas PAVO effects only dogs,
philosophy effects humans. But it is it is an affliction,
I think, and dogs can be the cure if you
know how to if you know how to look well.
Speaker 1: I took a philosophy course in college at Purdue and
I got a C plus. It was my lowest score
like lass, but I just remember, I think it was
Confucius might have said, to know what you know and
to know what you don't know, that is true knowledge.
And I just remembered in my I always needed to
start answering my essay questions on test with always a question.
But I mean, I think sometimes we don't have to
know everything. Dogs don't know everything, And I've just wondered,
what would Confucius say about dogs?
Speaker 4: Well, the great thing about dogs is that they know things,
but they don't know that they know things, and that's
because they lack an ability that we have. We're very
keen on this ability. We think it makes this great,
but in fact existence is always like swings and roundabouts.
There are always benefits and drawbacks to any sort of development.
So what I have in mind is the building sometimes
called reflection. It's the ability to think about yourself and.
Speaker 1: To you talked about it and you have a chapter mirror, mirror.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, So it's the ability to think about yourself
about what you're doing and why you're doing it. As
soon as you do that, you'll life kind of splits
into two.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: There's the life that you live, but there's the life
that you think about that you scrutinize and evaluate and
judge it. And so we humans, we always have these
two lives. Where's a dog who doesn't do that sort
of thing, because there's powers of reflection, a sort of
minimal compared to us, just says this one life. I
think that's probably why it loves its life more than
we love ours, you know, because it only has one,
this one life to live.
Speaker 1: We also said that, you know, studies have shown limited
studies that you know, when other certain animals look into
a mirror, like a maybe a chimpanzee or orangutang, they
also recognize their reflection. But dogs are all about the nose, right,
so they.
Speaker 3: Just see something.
Speaker 1: Maybe they don't see themselves in the mirror, but they
know all about smell.
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, is what one thing I do know from
all the dogs I've lived with during my life is
the dogs do not care one little bit about how
they look in a mirror, you know. And so whenever
you're testing an animal for something you've got to the
first thing you should think about is motivation. Is motivated
to study how it looks in the mirror? Well, dogs
are not.
Speaker 1: They don't have personal stylist right beauty products.
Speaker 4: Various dogs I've had have happily rolled and cow down,
you know, and the knowing that, and it's a dog
like back, and I care how he looks in the mirror.
I suspect not, you know. But the other point that
you make is that, yeah, dogs are driven by by
sand as much as sight, in case of many dogs,
more by sand. So there've been attempts, they've been very
ingenious attempts to come up with sort of olfactory versions
the mirror test. So Mark Beckoff is a biologist, lives
in Boulder.
Speaker 1: Column We've had him on our show.
Speaker 4: We've had so he came up with what what colloaquially
became known as the the yellow snow test. His dog
jet urinates, dog eat yellow snow. Pals, Yeah, don't do that,
So his dog urinates, leaving yellow snow. Mark puts the
dog away, then relocates the yellow snow, and then looks
at the amount of time as do spends sniffing his
own urine versus the urine of other dogs, and it
turns out he spends a lot more time in the
urine of other dogs. Does this mean he has a
sense of self that he recognizes urine has this? I
think there are other explanations that don't, don't impor but.
Speaker 3: No, I like that.
Speaker 1: Another thing you brought up in your book word of
Dog is dogs find joy in simplicity. I mean, we
can make our life far too complicated. We need to
take a hit the pause button. Yeah it's pun intended, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, No, I think that's exactly right. And it's this.
It's again, it's another drawback of this capacity for reflection.
We become troubles creatures. You know, I have this belief
a dog believes things show shadow gets out onto the
canal and believes there's an iguana close by and then charges.
You know, that's a belief. But our believes are different
because we have beliefs and we start worrying about them,
fretting about it. You know, Oh, I believe this, But
should I? You know, do I have enough evidence to
believe it? Or don't die? What will other people think
of me if if I believe this? And that's why
our lives become complicated. Is this this baleful capacity for reflection?
Speaker 1: Yeah, we just don't over complicate happiness.
Speaker 4: Yeah, precisely.
Speaker 1: Now you also say that dogs find value in the
unexamined life. They've got instinct. They've got really good instinct.
So what do you mean by that.
Speaker 4: Well, the examined life is a life way you think
about yourself. You wonder what a should up? Yeah, that
sort of thing. You know I've done that? Could I
have done it better? Because should I have done something different?
You know? A dog is unlike they say, well, I've
picked up this stick out on my wall this morning,
Should I have picked up that other stick? In stand?
That's not it's not something that the road left travel.
Speaker 1: Or I got a second place in agility. If I
would have gone through those little up and down that
ramp like two seconds faster, I would have worn They're
not doing that right precisely.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, So their lives are not examined in that sense.
And you know, there's benefits to having examined life, but
there's also drawbacks, and I was interested in the drawbacks.
Speaker 1: The last one I wanted to ask about was you
say that love and commitment are the cornerstones of canine philosophy.
You know, we've had Socrates a long time. I've even
been to Greece a bit, Parthenon and all that gay
toga man, But I'm kind of more of a champion
of the dogs and their philosophy. What do you mean
by that? Love and commitment are the cornerstones of canine philosophy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, commitments, as I used it, was basically about the
lack of reflection. So you're committed to something such as
a belief, for example, when you don't think about it,
you don't worry about it, you just act on it. Yeah,
when you committed that way, you have a kind of love.
I think for what you're doing that the creature who
is more troubled like we are, who worries about its
motivations and its actions and whether it could done things differently,
can't can't love its life as much as a creature
that's just committed to doing what it's committed to.
Speaker 1: So they kind of were the probably inspiration for just
Do It by Nike.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, I think I think Nike could have run
without a bit more you know, a lot more dogs
in Nike.
Speaker 1: We could have made them a lot more money, Professor Mark,
I mean, seriously, the.
Speaker 4: Dogs don't with negas, No, they don't.
Speaker 1: Thank goodness, I'm so glad so you say. I know
it's hard because it's just a show, a brief show,
and the book is something I want everybody to read
and have their dog by their side and really just
listen and reflect. But the word of dog, I really
enjoyed it. My dogs are ConA and Emma. They hung
out with me, we read the book. You know, I
think they actually turned the corner on a couple pages.
They really really liked because I think on page thirty
eight you kind of had a bone to pick with Socrates, yes,
because you said that dogs don't do the self examination
with the mirror mirror test, and ConA and Emma concurred.
Speaker 4: Oh good, I'm glad to hear that.
Speaker 1: So what's your take home message for people blessed to
have a dog or two in their life as you have?
That made you? You know you wrote this book. But
we live in crazy times now. There's a lot of
division politically, socially, whatever. So how can dogs help us?
We need them, We need a laugh. Yeah, the philosophy.
Speaker 4: Dogs will show you all any number of things. And
it's all to do whether you see these things. It's
all to do with the willingness to remain open to
what they're trying to show you. You know, I mean
it took me long enough. I mean I've been walking
shadow on the canal for years before it finally twigged,
you know, oh yeah, wait, yeah, so but eventually I
got this. So it's remaining open to what your dog
is showing you when you see kind of delight in
even the most marginally marginally beneficial, marginally attractive sort of
circumstances like.
Speaker 1: Riding with you to pick up your son at school.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, delight in the mind positive. I think that's
something we can we can definitely learn from them because
light is overwhelming, It can be overwhelming.
Speaker 1: Absolutely just curious as a cat, Professor Mark, what if
you could have a rebirth, would you come back as
a human or a dog?
Speaker 4: That's a very good question. I don't think there's an answer,
because I couldn't come back as a dog. It wouldn't
be me.
Speaker 1: Oh look at the professor, yeah, baby slack.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you, very fine. It just wouldn't be me.
And so what we're imagining here is a case where
a dog comes back but we think it's me, but
it's not really me because I can't be a dog. Unfortunately, Barnett, I.
Speaker 1: Was trying to get your movie rights to the next book.
I was trying, how do people find out about you
and get their pause on your book, The Word of Dog?
Speaker 4: Well, the book, that's easy. It's sold where wherever books
is sold. Basically, how do people get the I have
no social media. I just don't do it. I'm sorry
about Sorry about that.
Speaker 1: Go say hi to him at the University of Miami, guys,
he's there. Well, I really have enjoyed you being a
guest on our show. I hope I try to impress
you with my knowledge of philosophers.
Speaker 4: You yeah, you did, you certainly did.
Speaker 1: I feel they're human because of the dogs and the
cats in my life, and I think people we need
to pay a little more attention to them because they
can just make us a better home. Don't you agree?
Speaker 4: Yeah? I agree completely?
Speaker 1: All right, Hey, everybody, I'm so glad we've had Professor
Mark Rollins from the University of Miami on our show.
Get his book, The Word of Dog. I also want
to do a shout out to another Mark. He is
Mark Winter. He is the producer of Pet Life Radio.
We are the largest pet radio network on the planet
and this humbly this show obi have has been on
the air since two thousand and seven, making us the
longest running weekly pet podcast.
Speaker 3: On the planet.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of peas Professor Mark right.
Speaker 3: Hey.
Speaker 1: I also have a pretty cool kicktail e newsletter comes
out once a month four Legged Life.
Speaker 3: Check it out. We got prizes.
Speaker 1: I want you guys to sign up.
Speaker 3: We're going to.
Speaker 1: Be promoting shows like what we just had with Professor Mark.
I also teach pet First aid with my dog and
cat all over the world in person and via zoom.
Check out pet First Day for you because you actually will.
Speaker 3: Have fun learning.
Speaker 1: So until next time, this is your flea free host
Ardmore delivering just two words to all you two three
and four lakers out there.
Speaker 2: All behave coasta around the world. It's all behaved with
art and more. Find out why cats and dogs do
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from Wagging Tongues and tails and rin tin tinsel Town.
From famous pet experts and best selling authors to television
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and have.
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Speaker 2: All behave with America's pet entertainer Ardmore, every week on
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