This story is called "The Very Long Fence."
I've taken the dogs to the park by myself before, but always to the paved, bourgie-boo, manicured and landscaped Community Park, where people play softball and kids have plenty of monkey equipment. Today was the first time I ever took the dogs to the Woods alone. In the Woods, we see and chase (well, some of us) squirrels, deer, and raccoons. We see and don't bother frogs, turtles, and snakes. I can and have gotten seriously-maybe-I-will-die-here lost in shopping malls, parking lots, cities that I've lived in for oh, eighteen, nineteen years, which is part of the reason I'd never ventured to the Woods alone.
Luckily, "The Very Long Fence" is not a story about how lost and trapped in a thunderstorm I got today. I let the dogs lead, and they have little else to think about in their charmed lives than mentally mapping spaces they would like to chase critters through. No, "The Very Long Fence" is a story about the hubris of the Lou Dog.
Lou likes to walk on paths parallel to the main path where the rest of the family is. He's a very contrary guy. He will lay perfectly still in a great pose until the millisecond before the shutter closes. He will only want on the bed when he is not wanted on the bed, and when you do want him on the bed, you have to drag him up howling, and he will impatiently tolerate being petted, ears plastered to his head, until the second he can bolt. He will only eat a bone if he thinks that you want the bone, so we've developed elaborate and loud* rituals designed to make him eat what is supposed to be a treat. Lou is as grumpy as a billy goat.
So, when Lou Dog started walking alongside me and Jane on the other side of the Very Long Fence, I was not surprised.
Typical behavior. I talked to him as we walked, and posed the suggestion to him that perhaps there was not an opening in the fence where the trail turned left, and that perhaps he should go around and walk on our side. He brushed that off pretty quickly. So, what the hell, I figured, he's a dog. He's been here probably over 200 times, with no exaggeration. He has nothing else to think about. So we kept going.
Of course there was no opening in the fence where the trail turned left. Lou would've had to walk around about double the amount of fence he'd already walked past to join up with us, and didn't seem particularly interested in that option. So the doggie logic kicked in.
Can I dig under the fence?
No.
Can I climb over the fence?
No.
Oooh! A hole! Maybe I can fit through it!
No, no, actually I can't.
I have a picture of when Lou finally gave in and walked back the way that we came; the look on his face says that he really should've appreciated my wisdom and not walked on the other side of the fence. But it's taken 2 hours to get three pictures up, and it's Religious Channel time.
UPDATE: Praise be to fast connections:
*I'm gonna get that bone!
Bark! Bark bark!
I'm gonna get it!
BARK! BARK BARK BARK!
et cetera.
Luckily, "The Very Long Fence" is not a story about how lost and trapped in a thunderstorm I got today. I let the dogs lead, and they have little else to think about in their charmed lives than mentally mapping spaces they would like to chase critters through. No, "The Very Long Fence" is a story about the hubris of the Lou Dog.
Lou likes to walk on paths parallel to the main path where the rest of the family is. He's a very contrary guy. He will lay perfectly still in a great pose until the millisecond before the shutter closes. He will only want on the bed when he is not wanted on the bed, and when you do want him on the bed, you have to drag him up howling, and he will impatiently tolerate being petted, ears plastered to his head, until the second he can bolt. He will only eat a bone if he thinks that you want the bone, so we've developed elaborate and loud* rituals designed to make him eat what is supposed to be a treat. Lou is as grumpy as a billy goat.
So, when Lou Dog started walking alongside me and Jane on the other side of the Very Long Fence, I was not surprised.
Typical behavior. I talked to him as we walked, and posed the suggestion to him that perhaps there was not an opening in the fence where the trail turned left, and that perhaps he should go around and walk on our side. He brushed that off pretty quickly. So, what the hell, I figured, he's a dog. He's been here probably over 200 times, with no exaggeration. He has nothing else to think about. So we kept going.
Of course there was no opening in the fence where the trail turned left. Lou would've had to walk around about double the amount of fence he'd already walked past to join up with us, and didn't seem particularly interested in that option. So the doggie logic kicked in.
Can I dig under the fence?
No.
Can I climb over the fence?
No.
Oooh! A hole! Maybe I can fit through it!
No, no, actually I can't.
I have a picture of when Lou finally gave in and walked back the way that we came; the look on his face says that he really should've appreciated my wisdom and not walked on the other side of the fence. But it's taken 2 hours to get three pictures up, and it's Religious Channel time.
UPDATE: Praise be to fast connections:
*I'm gonna get that bone!
Bark! Bark bark!
I'm gonna get it!
BARK! BARK BARK BARK!
et cetera.
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