Member-only story
How Do You Know Your Dog Can Focus On One Thing?
Insights into a World through a Dog’s Lens and nothing else mattered.
For a guy who wrote two books on the subject’ focus,’ I started to think about one thing this Saturday morning: the definition of the word focus.
After writing and talking about the topic for so long, my 2-year-old black labrador retriever named Willy showed me what focus meant to him and changed how I think about this one word. (Oh, and by the way, the photo in this article is Willy, my black lab, and his toy)
Every morning Willy and I have a routine we do every morning. I start with my freshly brewed coffee in hand as Willy works his way out, bursting through the back door as if the house was on fire; he runs outside, enjoying the early sunrise, fresh spring air, and the birds in the distance singing at full volume, he was enjoying his early Saturday morning routine, just like all the others days.
After throwing his favorite toy 32 times for Willy to retrieve back to me, I realized what focus meant for him — ‘The Toy’ and nothing else mattered.
After he finished focusing on that, he started to focus on watching the birds enjoy breakfast from the well-stocked bird feeder nearby, and nothing else mattered.
