Dreaming of Dogs

I’ve always been a dreamer. I don’t mean that in the idealistic sense of believing deep down that anything is possible, but rather in the literal sense of having lots of dreams each night. They are always vivid, in full color, and I remember several each night. Even though my school French has always been poor, the language would show up in my dreams when I was studying it, though that’s supposed to be the sign of really knowing the language. (I do deserve to dream in Spanish, which I speak reasonably well, and in fact I do dream in that language regularly.)

With dreams showing up each night like free movies designed by me for me, naturally I dream about dogs a lot. Just in the last week or so, I’ve had three such dreams.

The first dream was about a dog trying to block the waves from ruining a little kid’s sandcastle before the judging of a contest.  The dog ran in between the sand castle and a big wave and blocked the full force of it from destroying the castle. The child who had built this particular castle had been bullied and teased by some other competitors, but ending up winning an award from the judges, thanks in part to the dog’s quick move. In my dream, I was very excited about what the dog’s actions might mean about dog’s cognitive abilities since he acted to prevent a future problem and chose the child who most needed the help.

In the second dream, I was running slow motion through a field of daisies with many dogs, most of whom belonged to clients. For years, I’ve said that people probably picture the daily life of anyone who works with dogs to be like this scene in my dream. The reality, though still wonderful, involves a lot of hard work, a lot of cleaning up, and the use of highly developed skills, experience, and education to prevent aggressive dogs from causing injury.

I was running a race in the third dream. A dog joined me after a couple of miles and ran with me the rest of the way, keeping me going over the last few miles when I was struggling and wanted to stop. As I crossed the finish line, I turned to give this dog some water, but he was gone. I looked all around, but couldn’t find him. Then I learned from some other people that every tired runner finishing the race mentioned having this dog as company, but that he always disappeared at the finish line.

Do you dream of dogs? What canine thoughts dance in your head as you sleep?

--Karen London

Comments

[Cathy Hughes]

I had a vivid dream of one of my dogs after I joined the foreign service. When I got my first assignment overseas, I returned my Whippet, Bic, back to the breeder. He has his breed championship and some of his requirements for his coursing championship. About 6 months after I had moved I dreamed of Bic. He was running full out in a field. When I called the breeders that weekend, they told me he had finished his coursing title. Bic is the first dog I had remembered dreaming about. The next dog I dreamed of was my Papillon, Dodger. I have had many dogs, but these two were very special to me. The dreams I had of him were bitter sweet since they did not occur until after his untimely death.