Smart Phones
Kuro Staring Straight into the Camera as We Snap A Pic
This is the modern day conundrum. The Smart Phone. It’s safe to say that almost everyone has one (3 Billion People), but also almost everyone can not imagine a time when we didn’t have one. Flash forward to today, we are overly connected. Then again, there are times where we do things like leave our phone by mistake at home, and while we’re out and about, we then face the challenge, “do I continue my day or activity without my phone or do I go back and get it”. The latter is likely the most popular choice. When we actually choose to ditch the idea of retrieving the phone, our so called lifeline, we get to experience that life, without a phone. And honestly, having done that recently (okay, we were lazy and walking Kuro), it can be truly liberating. It also got us thinking of our life with the phone and how it fits with Kuro.
“spending more time with our dogs actually helps us improve our mental and physical health!”
Time On Our Phones
The truth of the matter is, the smart phone provides us many services today that we deem as absolutely essential. The best camera you can have is the one with you - how else will you capture precious moments of your dog? Dogs don’t care about smart phones at all. They want to experience you and not capture any moment in devices. Some dogs, maybe even most dogs, won’t even batter an eyelid if you show them the picture you took of them. That’s really more for us. That teaches us a very important lesson. Dogs live in the now. Our devices are their enemy as they steal precious time they could have had with your full attention (see title picture). We know this to be true because once in a while, we would be reminded of this, not only by our pets but also the people around us. “Stop scanning through Instagram, your real friends are right here” - we may have been guilty of this or something similar. We spend an average of 3 hours and 15 minutes on our phone (Jovan Milenkovic, Komanndo Tech) and when it’s actually quantified, it’s a fair amount of time in a day, and in some cases, some of us are guilty spending even more time on it. When we start quantifying the time we spend with our pets, go ahead - think about it, that’s when we realize the time we spend with our pets drops, and we haven’t even started quantifying just quality time. Spending too much time on our phone is bad for our mental health for sure. There are studies that have mentioned that the more time people spend on social media, the more unhappy they are. In fact, spending more time with our dogs actually helps us improve our mental and physical health!
Funny Story
From a very young age, our Shiba Inu, Kuro, has always found Smartphones, Laptops and other device that takes attention away from her annoying. This has resulted in a natural habit of hers. If you leave your Smartphone or your Laptop on the sofa, she will send it flying across the room. YIKES!
Drop the Phone for Our Pets
That said, let’s explore some new phone-free habits that can actually help us be more attentive and spend more time with our dogs:
Leave your phone at home when you’re out with your dog.
From an accidental event, make it a purposeful one. When you’re walking your dog, you’re supposed to be more attentive with your dog anyway. This will help ensure that they don’t go near or eat anything they aren’t supposed to. It helps you observe your dog better, for any potential problems, from the way they walk to their breathing and stamina. You could even engage in activities and games with your dog, whether it’s as simple as training or running or catching a ball/frisbee. Socializing your dog at dog parks is another great idea since you’re out and about. While you’re at it, try to take them for longer walks too.Purposefully set a side time for your dog.
Love the irony, but schedule some time in your phone’s calendar to focus on spending time with your dog and stick to it. You might want to set some goals if you’re not simply playing with them and their toys like teaching your dog a new trick, chilling together at a dog-friendly cafe, explore a new park, or even take a nap and cuddle together.Partake in activities to help your dog overcome fears.
Sometimes the best way to overcome fears is to face up to it. If your dog doesn’t like sounds from a nail grinder, hair dryer or the vacuum cleaner, expose your dog to those things. For example, Kuro did not like her nail grinder, so we decided to spend more time to grind/file down her nails, and eventually she got used to it, not that she loves it but at least she isn’t as afraid anymore. The more they are exposed to these things, the more they don’t fear it as much because they get used to it.Go for Car Rides
Now, this is not for all dogs because some of them, like Kuro, have motion-sickness, and while that can be managed with things like Buta or Miruku by Kuro Snacks, they may never love car rides. But if your dog doesn’t have that problem, spending them with your dog, driving them to new places is a good way to not be on the phone (you can’t or shouldn’t anyway), this allows them to soak in new sighs, smells and sounds.
So there you have some ideas where you can put your phone away and spend quality time with your dog. Do you have any other ideas? Share with us in the comments!
