A break

If you are lucky enough to have a Person, you might be extra lucky enough to have one who will drive many miles in a cramped but fuel-efficient car to take you somewhere interesting for a walk. And she might take the money she saved on gas and buy you a nice item off the dollar menu at MacDonalds for your super supper. And she might rent you a little cabin to sleep in over night that has a little porch and yard and in the morning you can sniff the scent of red squirrel feet or gray fox feet or wolf feet or bear feet or even moose feet while the sun rises up over Lake Superior and ravens call gruffly as they fly over your little red head. And she might take you to Grand Marais and share a cinnamon-sprinkled donut with you while people admire your size and shape and brown eyes and ask about your origins. And she might take you hiking in a ferny grotto and clamber up the sides of a rocky outcropping with you and sit on the top of a bluff looking out over at the Poplar River and share an apple with you. And she might make you wait in the car while she eats with your Best Friend but she might bring you a piece of fresh bluefin herring to eat for a snack.

I am an extra lucky Red Dog and that is what I did this weekend for fun!

What are you looking for?

Let me tell you, chances are you will find something different.

I was just out on a little jaunt with my Person leashed up behind me and we were both looking for foxes. Or maybe baby racoons up in the tree branches. Or an eagle.

But instead we found a Lost Dog.

We were tromping through our favorite oak savanna, and we passed a group of leaf watchers. There was a dog with them. But when we passed them the dog followed us. "Is this your dog?" my Person bellowed. "No," they bellowed back.

My Person looked at the dog and said, "I hope you are not a Lost Dog."

The dog followed us a bit and then it ran ahead. "Aha!" my Person said. She thought the Lost Dog's Person was up ahead and the Lost Dog was not lost after all. But there was no Person up ahead. We stopped and the Lost Dog stopped too. Then it ran toward us and kept going back where we had first met it.

"Aha!" my Person said again, thinking the Lost Dog's Person was really behind us, not ahead of us. So we turned and followed the Lost Dog. But it turned too and ran back to us and then a little ahead. It really was a Lost Dog. So my Person called it, trying all sorts of names like "pup" and "dog" and "hey you." Finally she clapped her hands and yelled "Come!" and the Lost Dog ran right up and sat down and waited for one of my treats.

It was an old dog, brown and short and grizzled and pleasant. It had a collar but it didn't have any tags that said what its name was or its Person's phone number was or anything useful. (Now I remember why I have to wear those jangly things, since I was once a Lost Dog.) It also did not have a leash. And I needed to use mine to keep the number of Lost Dogs in this story to one.

Now my leash attaches to my sporty harness and my collar is mainly a holder for my tags. Every now and again my Person does something handy and on this occasion she fashioned a short little leash by slipping my collar though the Lost Dog's collar.

Off we went, my Person bent sideways to hang onto the short leash of the Lost Dog and I sped along on her other side stopping to sniff and snort and entertain myself. "Stop that," My Person growled.

We traveled along like this until we got to the main road and my Person found another Person to help us. She had a cell phone, being a better prepared sort of Person than my Person. And she called Animal Control, which does not help lost animals on Sunday nights. They suggested letting the Lost Dog go loose again!!

So the helpful and prepared Person called her husband and he came to meet us and he brought a real leash. I got my collar back and the Lost Dog trailed home after them to spend the night in a more comfortable place than an oak savanna. He is there now with a dish of water and a bowl of food and a blanket to sleep on. And in the morning those nice people will find that Lost Dog's real home and he won't be Lost anymore.

And my Person and I will go back to looking for foxes and not adventures.

Follow me where I go

Sometimes my Person lets me run free, like a wild thing. And I am a wild thing when I run free. I tear through ravines, across sandy beaches, into the woods. I have even run right up a tree trunk that was reclining a bit.

My nose is even faster than my legs and I sniff and snort as I run, skimming over fallen logs, diving into bushes, tongue and ears flapping, hot on the shifting trails of creatures with stinky feet. When I catch the scent of something I might like to hunt I bark and yelp as loudly as I can. I create quite a commotion.

But most of the time when we set off on an adventure, my Person hooks herself up to me with a leash. One end attaches to my handsome red collar and the other is clutched in her hand. And I lead her about. I think she is prone to getting lost and needs me to find the way for her. She certainly lacks my discerning nose and couldn't sniff her way home if her life depended on it. So she must follow me, attached one to another like mittens to an idiot string. She calls this "Taking the dog for a walk," but we all know what the real story is.

I might have more fun on my walks if I weren't lumbered with a great clumsy and slow Person. But sometimes it is nice to have someone along to share interesting experiences. Today, for instance, I discovered a red fox curled in a neat circle on a pile of fallen yellow leaves, dozing in the late afternoon sunlight that peaked through the trees. And I was happy to have my Person along to share this with. Of course I would have been happier if she had unhooked the leash so I could chase the fox around. But instead we watched a bit and I whined my regrets and we left the fox in peace.

And perhaps because I didn't chase the fox it won't be scared of fierce Red Dogs and the next time I take my Person on a walk we might have a fox sighting to share again.

More goodbyes

I might as well give in to my Person's lachrymose mood about the seasonal change and say farewell to another summer companion.

I am a pretty swell creature, but even I realize how phenomenal is this little bird. It is so petite and so full of bravado, so hungry and so speedy. Wait, am I talking about myself again? No, I am talking about ruby throat hummingbirds, our tiny summer-long visitors, who sup nectar from my Person's flowers that she buys just for them, and who bring their young ones to my yard as they grow into tiresome teens and who fuss and bother and zoom about the yard with their buzzing wings and sonic chitters.

They are endlessly fascinating to watch, sitting on the clothes line, and sticking out their tongues to catch passing gnats and scratching their tiny chins with one little foot. From their looping pendulum courting dances to their mad aerial bombing routines, they are proof that there is always something interesting to watch if you go outside and sit quietly. Maybe it will be a spider that creeps out or a shy sort of bird or a cloud that looks like a white version of a Red Dog. Maybe it will be a squirrel that is all red or maybe, if you are lucky and have lots of red flowers, it will be a hummer!