I have a confession.

For years, I thought my dog was being difficult. She won’t eat unless I’m nearby. Not in the same house. Nearby.

She’ll wait while I answer emails, put away groceries, or finish one more task. If I’m moving from room to room, she watches me instead of eating. Only when I finally stop does she lower her head to her bowl.

I’ve joked that she’s stubborn. Lately, I’ve started wondering whether I was the one missing the point.

I don’t actually know why she waits. Animal behavior experts could probably offer several explanations. I don’t pretend to know which is correct. What I know with certainty is what it requires of me.

Every evening, for a few quiet minutes, I stop. No phone. No email. No multitasking. Just standing beside her while she eats.

As physicians and surgeons, we become extraordinarily skilled at reading physiology. A patient walks into the room, and before a word is spoken, we notice the breathing pattern, the pace of walking, the texture of the skin, the expression on the face. We watch monitors, laboratory values, wound healing, and heart rate trends. We learn to recognize subtle changes long before they become emergencies.

At the same time, many of us become remarkably good at overlooking the same signals in ourselves. Hunger is something to deal with after the case. Fatigue waits for a day off. The racing heart is just another overbooked schedule. Tight shoulders become normal. None of this is taught explicitly. It simply becomes the culture of competence.

During one of the most stressful seasons of my life, people would ask how I was doing. I honestly don’t remember many of my answers. I remember moments with my dog. I remember the leash hanging by the door. The wet grass before dawn. Cool air filling my lungs before my phone had the chance to fill my mind. I remember throwing a ball and watching her chase it with an enthusiasm completely untouched by productivity, inboxes, an empty refrigerator, or tomorrow’s deadlines. I remember laughing before I realized I was laughing.

Looking back, I believe my dog saved my life. For years, I thought that meant emotionally. Now I’m less sure. I wonder if she simply kept returning me to my body before I had language for why that mattered.

Every physician has seen what happens when a therapy dog walks into the hospital. The diagnosis doesn’t change. The IV pumps continue to beep. The monitors continue their rhythm. Yet something in the room shifts. People kneel. Hands reach out, almost instinctively. Someone smiles who hadn’t smiled all morning. The conversation slows. For a few moments, people cannot help but be in their bodies. Touching. Seeing. Smelling. Breathing. Not tomorrow. Not later today. Now.

Trauma-informed care has taught us that our bodies often know what our minds have not yet named. Lifestyle medicine reminds us that physiology responds to our daily habits long before disease appears. Watching a therapy dog walk through a hospital, I can’t help but wonder if we’re seeing another expression of the same truth. For a few moments, people stop living entirely in their thoughts. They laugh. They breathe. They connect. They slow down. Perhaps that’s part of what healing looks like.

The longer I practice medicine, the less I think physician well-being is about becoming tougher. I think it is about becoming more fluent in our own physiology. The body is not an obstacle to excellence. It is the instrument that tells us whether excellence is sustainable.

Every evening, my dog patiently waits for me to stop moving before she’ll eat. Maybe she feels safer when I’m there. Maybe it’s simply habit. I don’t know. What I do know is that every evening she asks me to stop moving. She asks nothing from me except my presence.

In medicine, we spend our lives trying to understand what keeps human beings healthy. I sometimes wonder whether humans have loved dogs for thousands of years because they offer one of the simplest paths back to something we have always needed: to be fully present with another living creature. And, in doing so, to remember ourselves.

I’m still learning that lesson. Fortunately, I have a very patient teacher.

Brooke Buckley is a physician executive.