You comin’?
In order to really enjoy a dog, one doesn’t merely try to train him to be semi-human. The point of it is to open oneself to the possibility of becoming partly a dog.
-Edward Hoagland
Yesterday, a warm front came through our little patch of woods, The Assebet River Rail Trail, and raised the temperature to 58℉. It rained about 0.6 inches and the two together melted all the snow and ice on the tarmac. Last night, the temperature dropped well below freezing and I was afraid that I’d awaken to iced-over puddles. But that didn’t happen. There are a few small, shallow ice-skating rinks on the rail trail, maybe a foot in diameter, but nothing that can’t be easily negotiated. The temperature today, with windchill, is in the low twenties and the winds are blowing around 10 – 14 miles per hour. So, it is a little chilly, but easily dressed for. Waldo’s enjoying the cool.
Still, it’s cold enough that there aren’t many animals about. On other days, I see the occasional deer and, sometimes, an adventurous squirrel, but not today. No rabbits anywhere. I know there are skunks around here, but I’ve never seen any (I can smell them when they’re around). The air is clear and brisk today, however. I neither hear, nor see, any birds, whatsoever. It’s quiet. It’s just me, Waldo and a few fellow intrepid walkers, who pass us by. We have no hibernacula (a word I just learned that means the place where animals hibernate) — we gotta get out and fight cabin fever, you know. Oh, and, of course, there’s also the sleeping woods.
Waldo is doing his Waldo thing, nose inches off the ground, searching the environs with his odar (odor detection and ranging). He trots along in S-turns, back and forth across the trail, and stops, on occasion, when he finds something particularly interesting that requires a more prolonged and intensive sniff. That might be pee-mail, some other dog’s poop, a dead animal, or God knows what. When he does find that peculiar, enticing whiff that requires his focused attention, he sometimes falls behind. When he catches up, he almost always goes around me on my left. I’ve often wondered why.
Border collies are known for doing something the community calls “spinning.” They often walk around you – falling behind, passing you on one side, then falling behind again on the other side. It’s thought to be an expression of their herding instinct. When they’re on a leash, the result can be that you get all wrapped up in their tether. I am constantly passing the leash handle from one hand to the other to prevent that. When we’re out bushwhacking and Waldo gets in front of me and on the wrong “path,” I call him back. If there is a tree between me and him, he seldom comes back the way he went. He spins the damn tree. That means I have to plow through the weeds some distance (the leash is long) to where he is and unwrap the leash. We then backtrack to get on the course I want us to follow. It’s just one of the many ways I feel like I’m constantly trying to get us over what he’s put asunder.
One thing that I find puzzling about Waldo’s spinning is that it’s almost always in a clockwise direction. He falls behind me on my right, passes me on the left, and so on. Why in the world would he have a predilection for clockwise spinning? In nature, wind moves from a high pressure to a low pressure so the pressure can be equalized. This can’t happen directly because the Earth is rotating which creates a pseudoforce, called the Coriolis force, that makes wind blow clockwise out of the high-pressure region and then counterclockwise into the low-pressure area. That’s why all hurricanes and tornadoes spin counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere (in the southern hemisphere, the same force makes tornadoes and hurricanes spin in the opposite direction). But, as far as I know, there’s no counterpart to the Coriolis force that governs dog behavior. Maybe I should test that and take Waldo to Australia to see if he spins me in a counterclockwise direction.
After many S-turns and clockwise circles, Waldo straightens out his path and tugs a bit at the leash. He’s anxious to get back to the car and home. I don’t think that’s because he’s tired or cold. I think he’s looking forward to supper. And, of course, passing on dicta to his dogdom from his balcony throne. He does have responsibilities, you know.
Me, I’m tired and cold and looking forward to warming up in my beloved recliner. Until tomorrow, that is, when we do it all over again.
And share the joy of being in the woods.
Let’s go, then.