An interviewer this morning told me that she was nervous talking to me because I was controversial. I laughed. I am about as controversial as a tree stump, I told her. She asked me what was the single most important thing I had learned writing about dogs and other animals. That was easy.

To listen. I said. Not to talk.

To hear. Not to put my words into their heads. But to listen for theirs.

To see. Not to pour my stories and neuroses into them, but to see theirs.

But mostly to listen. To know that I do not have the language to speak with them.

Perhaps one day, but not now, not yet.

Most of us do not believe it or want to hear it, but their consciousness is beyond us.

Those who know that can begin to talk to them. That’s what I’ve learned, I said. To listen to them.