​Dog Sitting

So, there I am, responsible for watching someone’s dog for a couple of days. “Let’s go outside,” I say. “I have some yard work.”
 
Outside is definitely in the dog’s vocabulary. She runs to the door. We go out. I pick up a digging bar, a shovel, some bags of garden soil, and a number of plants that I intend to place on a hillside. The Golden Retriever watches, wanders around the yard a bit, exploring, and then returns for a few moments to watch again.
 
I’m sweating. It’s a humid, hot day in July. The ground is rocky, so I use the heavy iron digging bar as much as I use the shovel. The dog watches. The dog becomes bored. The dog goes off exploring for a bit, and then, bothered by the heat, goes to the door to wait for a human door-opener. She goes into the air-conditioned house. I remain outside, sweating as I toil with the soil.
 
Which one of us is the smarter? She is bothered by the heat, so she seeks shelter. I suffer through the heat to complete a job of my own making. If the dog could reason like a human, she might ask why, in the middle of seven acres of woods and wild plants, a human deems it necessary to dig and plant. Won’t nature do the work on its own?   
 
There’s no profound observation here. First, just questions: Is my desire to alter the natural setting a result of a human need to control place, to create as I believe nature could never do on its own? If my answer is yes, then why do I—and so many others—attempt to fashion a “natural landscape,” balanced, yet a bit random-looking? Second, small observations: When I imagine seeing through a dog’s eyes, I see the world as it is: Much of it largely beyond my control, some of it useful and beneficial, parts of it dangerous or, at least, inconvenient, and finally, a large part of it mysterious. When I look through human eyes, I see only what I would change.