“Most of us live in a world of mental abstraction, conceptualization, and image making — a world of thought. We are immersed in a continuous stream of mental noise. It seems that we can’t stop thinking.
Just as the dog loves to chew bones, the human mind loves its problems. we get lost in doing, thinking, remembering, anticipating — Nature can show us the way home, the way out
of the prison of our own minds.
Close your eyes and say to yourself: ‘I wonder what my next thought is going to be.’ Then become as alert as a cat watching a mouse hole.
You may find that, as long as you are absolutely alert, the next thought does not arise. (I have lived with a lot of Zen masters, all of them cats.)
Millions of people who otherwise would be completely lost in their minds and in endless past and future concerns are taken back by their dog or cat into the present moment, again and again, and reminded of the joy of Being.
We have forgotten 
what rocks, plants, and animals still know. We have forgotten how to be — to be still, to be ourselves, to be where life is: Here and Now.
The dog is in the Now so it can teach you or remind you. Be alert as you watch a dog at play or at rest. Let the animal teach you to feel at home in the Now, to celebrate life by being completely present. The dog is still in the natural state. 
And you can easily see that, because you have problems and your dog doesn’t. And while your happy moments may be rare, your dog celebrates life continually. You just watch the tail … with some dogs you just look at them — just a little look is enough — and their tail goes …’Life is good! Life is good!’ And they are not telling themselves a story of why life is good. It’s direct realization.
The human says, ‘I love myself,’ or ‘I hate myself.’ The dog says ‘Woof, woof,’ which, translated, means I am myself. I call that integrity — being one with yourself. The dog has no self-image, good or bad, so he has no need to play roles, nor does he love himself or hate himself. He has no self! How to live free of the burden of self — what a great spiritual teaching.
They have been with humans for thousands of years, and now there is a link between dogs and humans, much closer than it has ever been. So part of their divine purpose is to help us. But it always goes both ways. Because by living with humans, dogs also grow in consciousness, it is reciprocal. Because dogs and cats still live in the original state of connectedness with Being, they can he
lp us regain it. When we do so, however, that originial state deepens and turns into awareness.
When you are present, you can sense the spirit, the one consciousness, in every creature and love it as yourself.
Every being is a spark of the Divine or God. Look into the eyes of the dog and sense that innermost core.”
Guardians Of Being, Eckhart Tolle, p. 48 – 106.
