I’m reunited with an old Chihuahua friend
I am writing this column from sunny Dundee where I am visiting a handsome Chihuahua boy I worked with when he lived in Ayrshire.
Some people doubted my sanity in doing this and doubted the little chap’s ability to remember me; after all it has been more than a year since Romeo had seen me.
The general consensus seemed to be that dogs do not have the ability to recall people or faces or to recall anything much at all.
Concisely put by a friend of mine ‘ if they could remember we wouldn’t have to keep teaching them things over and over would we?’ which is a fair point to make if dogs had brains like humans but they are dogs and are wired differently.
In a nutshell dogs have excellent long- term memory but their short- term memory – well that needs a little work.
This is why a poor canine soul can remember cruel abuses of years ago yet can forget a recall lesson he learned only the day before.
So my Chihuahua boy most certainly did remember me and this is because a dog uses not only his eyes to see a face and a body but his super- sensitive nose and since these guys carry around 300 million olfactory receptors in their noses it is no wonder they remember by smell much more than by sight or by sound as we do.
Now here is the rub – everything I just said is wrong.
Dogs do not ‘ remember’ anything at all. Not a thing. Let me explain, whilst Romeo did know me he did not remember me at all. What he did do is recognise me – that is he pulled from his memory store my facial structure, my smell, my tone of voice and most importantly the way I made him feel and all these things put together told him that
Yes, I was someone he could get excited about, have fun with and to all intents and purposes Romeo ‘ remembered’ me, was happy to see me and wanted to spend time with me.
Now the reason dogs find it more difficult to ‘ remember’ the things they did yesterday is because they have not yet enough in their memory store to pull on.
I have known and worked with Romeo for two years, I haven’t seen him for one year but he had two years of experience to pull on but if I met Romeo only once and didn’t see him for one year he would have so much less experience ( if any) to pull on hence he would probably not ‘ remember’ me.
Until next time, Maya.