Be more Ferris Bueller
(or how slowing down can bring the joy to all species)
Published on 28 March 2024
By Steve Goodall
Before we start I want to promise you this isn’t an advert from the Welsh tourist board… Okay… Let’s begin…
I just got back from a weekend away to visit the lovely county of Pembrokeshire in Wales. Whilst there I visited a place called Narberth that was buzzing with an all the excited hustle and bustle of a city. There were eight different pubs and various bistro/restaurants that were serving a surprising number of people considering it was a clear, but cold, day in March. The town was a feast for the senses and as we walked around it was difficult to take it all in.
We had given ourselves forty minutes to explore before retiring to he hotel and getting prepped for a, pre booked, meal. This meant I didn’t have long to take it all in and as the forty minutes ran low I was surprised to feel a slight panic creeping in. I quickly realised why this sense of panic had come over me. It was all down to the worry that, if I hurry, I may miss something about this wonderful place. Perhaps just around this corner there would be a quirky street or amazing gallery that I might deprive myself of due to the strict, self-imposed, time limit.
Fast forward to the morning and I woke up at 5:30am. I’ve never slept that well in hotels and as I lay there I remembered the feeling from the previous day. Realising I had two and a half hours before we’d booked breakfast, I decided to get up, get showered and go for a solo wonder around Narberth without a time limit.
This was a completely different experience compared to the day before. Firstly, there was hardly anyone about for the first half hour of my walk so it was just me walking the streets of this amazing town, filling my lungs with fresh intakes of Welsh air as the sun started to peep over the town houses. I walked slowly being careful to really look around. I sat down on a bench and watched a Rook busily finding the perfect foliage to build her nest. I took every twist and turn the town had sometimes hitting dead ends and, other times, stumbling across little wonders like a ruined castle, a babbling brook and delightful streets full of colourful houses. I stuck one of my favourite tracks on Spotify (Nick Drakes “place to be”) and listened on repeat as a certain calm washed over me.
The first people I saw were, of course, the dog walkers. People and dogs going on their early morning strolls who all greeted me with either a friendly “Hello” or tail wag. This then, inevitably, got me thinking about dogs.
I realised a few months back that so many of my family walks had started to become a bit of a marching mission. Big circular strolls where I have a route planned and a fairly stringent timeframe to complete it in. I realised looking back, that this was exactly the kind of walk I’d been on when I arrived at Narberth. I wondered if dogs might experience that same slight panic if they felt hurried along?
Once I’d identified there was an issue with my walks last year, I put a plan in place to make sure it become the norm. I started, purposefully taking some slow relaxed walks all based around giving as much choice to the dogs as possible. I focused, pretty much exclusively, on letting them have all the time the want to smell all the smells, using my body language as a recall (trying not to cue anything) and really observing their interactions with other dogs (where appropriate). I tried, my best, not to hurry my dogs, unless we needed to move away from a potential trigger/worrying scenario.
I remember thinking that, after a month of doing this, what a impact it had had on our walks together. Firstly it's incredibly relaxing and mindful to focus in on everything our dogs do. I can be guilty of listening to podcasts and audio books on walks, ironically about dog behaviour, so letting the sounds of the natural world in as well as truly observing my dogs helped to really slow down my thinking and enter a more “mindful” headspace.
The second thing is just how much my body language is writ large in the world of both my dogs. They watch me A LOT for any little sign of where we might be off to next and when I slow down, and actually give them the time to choose they slow down as well. If I stop, they stop. If I drop my shoulder to change direction they gleefully follow onwards to the next little adventure. It's a humbling experience sometimes to clue in and notice just how much they want to be with us.
The third (which didn’t come as a surprise) was just how happy both the dogs seemed with these change of pace, choice filled adventures.
Of course, on reflection, this is the gift I gave myself on that chilly beautiful morning in Narberth. I think we can all agree that it's really flipping hard to slow down sometimes in our world of fast news, fast cuts and information super highways. I think I'll do my best to remember this more in times to come.
As ever, I think we need to learn to read what our dogs need and slow paced walks aren’t always going to be the answer. I try to meet them with the energy they have (where appropriate). Not every walk, however, is going to be mindful bimble through nature. We also have to be realistic and understand our dogs. Peaches quite often revels in a fast paced tracking walk through natures “scent super highways” and Penny loves a stop for a high octane tuggy game as much as a “snifari”. Each of these is a very different experience for me, as well as the dogs I share this life with. None of these are mutually exclusive but remembering to take it slow, smell the roses and take it all in, at times can only improve all our lives right?
After all… I believe it was the famous philosopher Ferris Bueller who once said: 'Life moves pretty fast, if you don't stop and look around once in a while you could miss it'