yin and yang of life "in the moment"

"In Chinese philosophy, yin and yang (陰陽 yīnyáng, lit. "dark-bright", "negative-positive") describe how seemingly opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another."

I have read and heard about dogs "living in the moment" more times than I could count.  It has always sounded a bit romantic, but I could see it.

However in the last 9 days, it has been an 'in-your-face' DOGS LIVE IN THE MOMENT. But then do they?

Last Saturday we had another collapse (that was #2).
Sunday, Bugsy was full on Bugsy - no memory whatsoever of scrambling on the ground unable to rise.

Monday morning he was mostly 2.5 legged. And overall the day wasn't great.
The realization for us, his human managers, was he cannot have free access to the stairs.
So we diligently start blocking the stairs; he can be upstairs or downstairs but no solo trips on the stairs for the dog who still thinks stairs are things you run down and try to leap up.

Tuesday off to the vet, it was another day that he had woken up without 4 functioning legs.  In fact at lunchtime he had another "I can't stabilize myself" incident.

After every one of these incidents, he literally seems to immediately have no memory of the 'I can't feel my legs' moment.

Each morning last week, until Friday, he woke up with bad legs and we thought this was the new reality.
He didn't want to eat, was morose but got better as the day wore on.

Friday he woke up with 4 working legs and you'd have thought he was 5 yrs old again.
We humans of course were very wary of his energy but he was as if he'd never had an issue.
It was gone, all was normal life.

Happily, each day since he's had 4 working legs- to varying degrees but 4 working legs.

And Steve & marvel at his playfulness, mischief, energy, drive and attempts at killing himself.

Life in the moment.

But wait a minute, how do we then explain this -
He knows that when we leave, we are going to gate the stairs, so now he has changed his, 'oh you are going to work' routine - he used to go to his bed and wait for a treat.
Now he watches VERY closely and if he as much thinks I am heading out, he runs up the stairs.........

Not so in the moment now are you buddy?
I guess you can't get over the trauma of being held captive on an entire floor of a large house.
Call animal control buddy tell them about this abuse.

Anyway I think its interesting and I have lots of smart friends that will school me on why it is different phenomenon but for now I'll call it the yin and yang of life in the moment.

In many ways - it is the coolest thing to see, one minute ago was so one minute ago.

But then, never forget that time when something you didn't like happened and do everything you can to make sure it doesn't happen again.