THE ONES WE WALK PAST

What a Man and His Dog Taught Me About Presence, Poverty, and the Things We’ve Forgotten

It was a grey, unremarkable morning — the kind London produces without effort — when I noticed a man sitting cross-legged on the pavement, his dog lying against him as though stitched to his ribs. No lead. No commands. No fuss. The street their home.

He wasn’t training her.
He wasn’t performing affection for passers-by.
He was simply there.

And the dog — a scruffy collie-mix — was simply with him.

Not obedient.
Not waiting for instruction.
Just moving in subtle synchrony with him, breath for breath, twitch for twitch, as though the two of them shared a nervous system.

People walked past.
Some avoided eye contact.
Some judged.
Some softened, then stiffened again, ashamed of the softening.

But I stood there long enough to see what I hadn’t seen before:

This was a healthier human–dog relationship than most I’d ever encountered.
And I couldn’t shake the discomfort that came with realising it.

Because we know — you know — how dogs often live with those of us who are not on the street:

We love them fiercely.
We buy them premium food and supplements.
We take them to training and daycare.
We call them our “babies,” our “support,” our “anchors.”

And yet many of our dogs are anxious.
Many pace, tug, fret.
Many are overwhelmed in ways we barely acknowledge.

Not because we don’t care.
But because we are rarely present.

Our attention is fractured.
Our bodies are tense.
Our minds are elsewhere.
We love our dogs, but we don’t always meet them.

We’re in the same house, but not quite in the same moment.

The man on the pavement had none of the stability the world recognises — no home, no insulation from cold or noise or judgement — yet he had the one thing his dog needed most:

unbroken availability.

Not sentiment.
Not drama.
Just presence — the simplest, oldest form of care we ever offered animals before modern life scattered us.

And dogs know.
They always know.

They know when a human is reachable.
They know when a human is attuned.
They know when a human is broadcasting static.
They know who is genuinely with them.

And so the dog stayed against his side without being asked.
Not because she was trained.
But because she was met.

This is the uncomfortable truth we don’t know how to discuss:

Some of the most attuned human–dog bonds in our cities belong to people who sleep outside.

Not because homelessness is good.
Not because hardship makes people wise.
Not because those on the margins are morally superior.

But because certain human skills only survive when nothing protects you from reality:

reading threat
sensing safety
watching the world moment by moment
relying on rhythms rather than routines
co-regulating because you must, not because a book told you to

These are the skills dogs recognise.
These are the skills many of us, cushioned by comfort and distraction, have unlearned.

I’m not suggesting we elevate the homeless into spiritual mascots.
I’m saying something quieter, truer, harder to dismiss:

Presence is a literacy.
Some people we overlook still speak it.
And their dogs reveal this before we dare to.

If we weren’t so defended, we might learn something.
Not about homelessness — but about ourselves.

About what our dogs have been trying to tell us.
About the tension we carry without noticing.
About how little of us is actually available in the moment.
About the parts of life we’ve insulated ourselves from until we barely feel them anymore.

Maybe that’s why, whenever I see a man or woman on the pavement with a dog resting against them, I don’t feel pity.

I feel recognition.

Not of their suffering.
But of something we’ve misplaced — a thread of connection the rest of us keep trying to buy, train, outsource, or schedule, when it really begins with a nervous system simply willing to stay.

I don’t know what to do with this insight.
It isn’t a campaign.
It isn’t a programme.
It isn’t a call to action.

It’s just something I saw one morning that quietly rearranged my understanding of value, presence, and the strange ways integrity survives at the margins.

Maybe all I can do is offer the observation and let it land where it lands:

Some people who have lost almost everything
have not lost the ability to meet another being without armour.
And the dogs, who never look away,
show us this long before we’re ready to see it.