I first encountered this question when my son and I were playing a card game that includes brain teasers. Most of the questions are designed to throw you off track by making you think too much or think about a problem in the wrong way. The dog in the woods question is an interesting one, because a lot of people start thinking about what kind of dog we’re talking about, how fast the dog runs, how deep the woods are, whether there are trails or obstacles, how hot it is, and so forth. These are all reasonable considerations, but we don’t know any of that information. This question basically requires us to avoid making assumptions or inferences and simply go with what we know. There’s no other way to answer it. This reminds me a lot of the DBT mindfulness skill of “describe.” Describing involves putting words on our experience. When we do this, we have to be very careful to avoid going beyond the concrete facts. Mindfulness, after all, is all about seeing things the way they are, not the way we think they are. So, the Number 1 rule for the skill of describing is that we can only describe what we can observe. This means we can’t describe the thoughts going through someone else’s mind, someone else’s intentions, motivations, or emotions, and so on. Describing requires us to focus on our immediate experience of the present moment and simply talk about it without adding anything, assuming, inferring, judging, guessing, and so forth. I often tell my clients that describing is the antidote to judging. When judgmental thoughts arise about yourself or others, try to simply step back, observe, and describe the facts. If, for example, you were hurt by something someone close to you said, you would describe exactly what the person said, avoiding assumptions or judgments (e.g., he was “rude,” was trying to hurt me, was angry with me, hated me, etc.). You could also specifically describe how you felt when this occurred, such as angry, sad, hurt, and so forth. You could also take it a step further and describe the physical sensations, thoughts, and urges that accompanied these feelings. As judgments often muddy the waters, make it hard to see things as they are, and generate more suffering, the skill of describing can be an invaluable tool in the practice of mindfulness, even in really painful situations. Now, back to the dog. Although I know the answer to the question starting this blog, I also unfortunately recently learned how far a dog can run out of the woods. We were walking our dog, fairly deep into the woods on a well-used trail where most dogs are off leash, when another dog got excited and started to chase him. He bolted down the trail as fast as he could and ran all the way home (about a 15-20 minute walk). Fortunately, he’s extremely bright, knew the way home, and arrived safely. That said, we know he doesn’t have much road sense, and he had to cross a road to get home, so needless to say, we plan to take precautions to prevent this from happening again! ~ Alexander L.Chapman, Ph.D., R.Psych.