Physics, especially those laws of nature posited by our friend, Sir Isaac Newton are not particularly compatible with dogs, instead being more akin to water and oil. They hardly ever mix. Personally I never understood that complicated subject in school, instead choosing to be one of those liberal arts majors everyone loathes today. When determining whether to pursue a degree in the sciences, physics would have been a requirement and with its emphasis on math, well, it gave me more than a moment of pause. Physics is about scientific laws of motion and forces…but with math. Shudder! It’s a well documented fact that I’m horrible with math and it seems my dogs aren’t interested in math or the laws of physics.

Moving objects tend to keep moving. Sir Isaac Newton’s Principia formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation. “Newton’s First Law, which says “an object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.” (Source: Wikipedia) It’s called inertia, Sam which means when we’re walking, we keep walking. It’s not rip-the-shoulder-out-of-its-socket-instant freeze frame. Trust me on that one-even my orthopedic surgeon thinks so and he never agreed on much with me.

Then again maybe you guys subscribe to Raman’s scattering, described in Wikipedia as “the inelastic scattering of a photon by molecules which are excited to higher vibrational or rotational energy levels” and discovered by C. V. Raman and K. S. Krishnan, a student of Raman’s). Huh?? I looked up inelastic scattering because this made no sense to me and think it means something like ‘blah, blah Ginger, blah, blah blah.”

In other words, I have no clue about that law, but am fully aware of the concept of ‘higher vibrational energy’ when the Ninja, standing perfectly still, all of a sudden launches herself into full-on Mach 5 speed with me at the end of her leash much like a human kite.

Newton’s second law (F = ma) is apparently is used to “make a mathematical prediction as to what path a given system will take following a set of known initial conditions.” Clearly Newton knew nothing about dogs for they generally do not travel in a straight path, instead giving in to noses that pull them along in helter-skelter fashion as they chase down a scent or prepare to answer the latest pee-mail. This law often manifests in winter and deals with leash lengths. Need I remind you sweet fur-kids, the leash is only so long and while your nose may inspire you to travel outside that length limitation, the upright firmly attached to the end is not inclined to step in ankle-deep snow just to satisfy that urge. That my dear knuckleheads is known as Murphy’s Law because that snow is almost always deeper than any boots.

Do your kiddos follow the laws of physics or are they more likely to be fans of Murphy’s Law?

Live, love, bark! ❤︎