If you spend as much time as I do with a dog–(the only perk of blindness, eh?) you have the privilege of living a sort of dual citizenship. My yellow Labrador Nira and I fly together and go to classes together. We enter supermarkets and museums, amusement parks and churches (those yins and yangs of the spirit).
Now I resolve that henceforth whenever Nira stops to sniff I too shall drop to the ground and follow suit. I hereby announce that I’m throwing off my anthropomorphic and shallow notions of “ergo sum” for a new kind of “cogito” driven by odor and fragrance and all the declensions in between.
Yes I’m going to learn about Nira’s world. I will keep you posted dear reader. And yes of course the pun is intentional. I shall hold nothing back. I will not fear gawking strangers. (Indeed the public “already” gawks at the blind guy anyway.)
I’m going to undertake graduate study with Nira who is, after all, a $45,000 dog.
Stay tuned.
S.K.
Planet of the Blind 
I stay far away from my pups if they happen to be able to grab a tootsie roll from the cat box, or if they try to “clean up” after the Canada Geese that frequent our area of New York, but I do occasionally see if I can smell anything when they are intent on a particular spot on the ground. They seem to enjoy that I’m trying to share in their world 🙂 Note that I also avoid sniffing around fire hydrants; I can guess what they are smelling there and I’d rather not share! Go for it, Steve, and to heck with what the neighbors might think!
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Steve- I hope Nira doesn’t decide to teach you the hard olfactory lessons. i hold Labrador wisdom in the highest esteem, but Sophia and I part ways on the ingestion of cat treats. When she chows down on cat feces it is one of those rare times when I hope no one knows we are symbiants. I wonder which of my behaviors causes Sophia similar distress…
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