Where is the dog?

The examined life? "It's important - very important - to examine things", said Dave the other day; "key to a happy dog life", he went on. Dave was showing off quoting Socrates and all that. But Socrates wasn't really talking about happiness as such - he said life "wasn't worth living" if you didn't examine it.  Except, he said it in Greek. But should we examine everything? That's me sticking my head out of the window on the way over to see Dave. Completely happy with myself, sniffing out for rabbits. Admittedly, I was still thinking about the problem of whether  1 + 1 = 2 , but I wasn't thinking about the view; that was a pleasure in itself: sniffing, wagging, barking. That then gave me a bit of a paws-over-the-eyes headache: 1) Was looking out of the window made any different by my examining it later? I don't think it made the smells I could remember smelling smell any better because if it, or the wagging made more w

1 + 1 = 2? The Dog has never been that great at maths. Dave - pictured with Sammy in their "Lord of the Sith" poses for their weekly Star Wars night - thinks he's slightly better at it, but only because he can count up to eleven. One of the most baffling things for the Dog is the idea that "1 + 1 = 2". Dave tried to explain it to me once using apples. We were originally going to try to work out what "2 + 1 = 3" means, but Dave was hungry and mumbled something about that being terribly very complicated - and ate one of them. Dave tries to explain it all "So here's one apple. A tasty pink lady apple.", said Dave. "And here's another one.". "That's two apples. So 1 + 1 = 2". Job done Dave thought. "But what if one of the apples is green, and the other one is red?", I asked. Now that didn't make a lot of sense to Dave. He's colour blind for a start, like most dogs, so wasn't reall

"No trainers" The Dog went for a little run round the park today, with Lenny, Bonzo and Poppy (pictured here in their finest fettle). Most fun, even though there were no rabbits to chase. Bonzo had his ball though - on one of those springy long stick things that makes it easier to throw. Fab. Pootling We then thought we'd pootle along to the Botanic gardens, where we were met by a very interesting sign: "no jogging". This started a lot of yabbering about it, us being of course, along with Dave (indisposed unfortunately today, away off looking for blue mice ), all founder members of the Dog Philosophy Club.  We thought of some difficulties with the sign: "jogging" is fiddly to pin down - when does it become "running"?; when does it become "walking"? What if you were chasing after a small child who was about to fall into a pond - would that be "jogging"? More likely "running". What if you were doing some

Courage Look at Dave's friend Sally. She's off to try her new hang-gliding kit in the park.  "Gives you a really good lift for chasing rabbits" , she says.  Now flying like that takes a certain amount of courage . Which prompted the Dog to do a little musing or two whilst chewing a Bonio ("the nation's favourite dog biscuit") . Quick sniff in the dictionary First, just to be a bit sure of himself, the Dog thought he'd double check what "courage" actually means; he'd come unstuck before confusing the, fairly rudimentary, words, "now don't you  eat that cake..." . The Oxford English Dictionary ("the definitive record of the English language") had a nice little definition, tucked away at sense 4: "...t hat quality of mind which shows itself in facing danger without fear or shrinking; bravery, boldness, valour." Now, on that definition, Sally is courage-max, for sure, do

Being Happy There are 50 million results  if you ask my friend, Mr Google, about "being happy". I suspect though that as you start to get beyond page 5, the results bear no resemblance to what you were really looking for.  Actually Dave (see, e.g.,  Dog Blog 17  - Semicolons ) told me that last stat - which was totally made up. Interestingly, there was still interesting stuff (doubly interestingly, and now triply so) on page 5 of Mr Google's offerings: where, among other things,  Michelle Obama  suggests that you need to "give yourself permission" to be happy.  Happy thinky Fellow Dog,  Matthew Pianalto , had a thinky about some of this stuff. He points out that there are a number of different ways you might look at happiness: broadly psychological things that lead to happiness (going for a walk with a nice ball to chase, or a zen like state when chasing the ball)  and the destination itself. The second bit is very tricky, at least for dogs like me an

Semicolons The Dog has been spending a long sojourn in his bed with his squeaky toys ( Dog blog 10 - plugging in ); contemplating winter, and exercise. Spring however, like Dave here with his favourite ball, has finally sprung. In doing his own springings, and writing that first sentence, the Dog thought he'd better have a quick check about when it's OK to use a semicolon. Sniffy nose; and things Semicolons fascinate me, and I like to keep my big sniffy nose out for them when I'm doing my readings. Apparently the ancient Greeks used them as question marks - and they started to be used in English around the 16th Century. Shakespeare used them a bit, but they didn't really catch on till the 17th Century. My copy of the 3rd Edition of Fowler's Modern English Usage tells me that the name "semicolon" was first recorded in English in 1644; by which time, folk, and Dogs, were getting a bit carried away. Then the craze was for dashes apparently