Running on the Wild Side

Dogs, like people, sometime meet one of their own kind who trigger the wild side of their personalities. That other dog – or person – brings out something strange and vastly different in your personality that urges you to take risks, to move against the status quo, to do what you are not programmed to do. You are suddenly and wonderfully liberated from taboos, feel pumped up with self-confidence, you’re in the flow, the moment.  

This is the space that Noah, our golden retriever, and Nika, our daughter’s dog, inhabit when they are together. It’s actually an incredible thing to watch.

Rob and I lead fairly quiet lives. When Noah is alone with us, he adapts to that quietude, meditating with Rob on the porch in the mornings, thumping his tail against the floor when I come out into the kitchen long after that meditation is over, often nosing through the fallen leaves in our yard, looking for the omniscient squirrel.   

But when Nika is here, all that energy changes. Noah is suddenly eager to be doing whatever Nika is doing – on the hunt for avocado seeds and squirrels, lizards and squirrels, toys and squirrels. Always, it comes back to these squirrels.

Since our time change the first Sunday in November, where we supposedly gained an hour of time, Noah and Nika started getting restless between 3 and 4 PM, which used to be 4-5 PM, when we would take them to the dog park.  So now, shortly after three PM, we leash them and pile in the car. As soon as we pull into the park, both dogs are hanging their heads out the window, scanning the area for squirrels.

The moment the doors open, the dogs leap out. Sometimes, we can hold them back until we reach the gate. Other times we do so at our own peril and just release the leashes. And off they go, tearing through the front part of the park, the unfenced part, and race from tree to tree, leaping, barking, on the hunt for squirrels. It’s then they are running on the wild side, the wind at their backs, their snouts in the air, pursuing scents we can’t even imagine.

If Nika isn’t visiting, Noah can’t be bothered to race through the park. She brings out this wildness in him.

When the four of us manage to reach the gate with the dogs still leashed, they whimper and bark to get inside the park. We take off their leashes, unlatch the gate, and off they go, moving at the speed of light to the farthest corners of the park, happy to simply run together beneath the vast blue sky, and ever hopeful to spot a squirrel scampering along the top of the fence or up the trunk of a tree. Watching them, my heart soars.

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Interestingly, while I was writing this, the Rachel Maddow show was on in the background. She was talking about how Republicans continue to pursue distractions rather than real issues. The dogs were curled up on the floor between our offices.

And Maddow  said, “Distractions – squirrel- distractions – squirrel.” And the dogs suddenly came fully awake and ran to the door just as Maddow uttered a third squirrel.

I think that would qualify as a squirrel cluster!