Football or dogs?

I had planned to write a post today about how I found out I'd been accepted to university a few years ago (OK, I'm being generous by calling it "a few", but whatever), but things kept popping up and before I knew it, it was time for me to drive my son's friend to the airport so he could fly back to England. And then when I got back from the airport, it was time to take Rover for a walk, and then it was suppertime, and then time to watch a couple of episodes of a show with my wife, then time to watch the France-Iceland match, and now it's 23:42 and I still haven't written anything today.

During the less exciting parts of the match, I tried to think of something to write about. I wrote about football yesterday, so maybe something else? On the other hand, watching football and writing code is most of what I've been doing for the past two weeks, and I've written plenty about code as well.

As I was thinking about this, my dog, who was stretched out next to me on the couch, fast asleep, must have decided that he wasn't taking up quite enough room and stretched his hind legs all the way back and squashed me into the arm of the sofa. As I was moving his legs back, I was suddenly struck by a thought: what are dogs thinking about? As the first person in the history of the world to ponder this important issue, I'm sure I'll go on to become famous in philosophical circles or veterinary circles or veterinary philosophy circles.

Sometimes it's obvious what dogs are thinking. "OMG gimme gimme", when there's anything in your hand that they suspect is edible or playable with; "you want me to do what now?" when you're telling them to go lie down instead of sitting so close to the dinner table that their nose is actually making contact with your plate; "it's not happening, Dad," when you're telling them to sit and they don't want to; "I wonder how many other dogs have walked by this exact leaf in the last 72 hours?" when they're intently sniffing the same leaf for five minutes instead of walking or, you know, answering the call of nature.

But other times, it is a complete mystery what is going on in their heads. My dog likes to sleep, and spends most of his time doing that. He has various comfortable places around the house, and he'll be dozing in one of them, then all of a sudden get up, walk a couple of metres to another spot, plop down, and go back to sleep. Why? What made him decide, all of a sudden, that his previous spot just wasn't cutting it anymore and he needed to make a change in his life? What criteria did he use to select the next spot? Was it worth getting up and moving, or does he ever have regrets about his choices?

We may have to just accept that some things are unknowable.