BY HARRY WEEKES
This August, we became empty-nesters. My experience of this, so far, is that like so many things, empty-nesting is a process comprised of hundreds of small events, more than one major event. One of these small events was me traveling back with Olive, the oldest of our mini-Dachshunds. For those of you familiar with flying with dogs, you can only have one dog per person. With no kids coming home, Hilary and I divided and conquered, and Olive came with me.
Olive and I have been spending a lot of time together, as we have over her entire 10 years.
So here is what happened.
Each morning, I take Olive on a short walk—to greet the day, to go to the bathroom, to explore the thousand or so scent trails left by the creatures of the night. Invariably, Olive gets into the gravel of the driveway and urinates right away.
This morning was no different.
What was different was that almost immediately, she lowered her head and picked up a scent that had her weaving both slowly and also with her head close to the ground (or, closer to the ground). We walked this way for a bit and then started a normal walk.
When we returned, we got to a point where Olive seemed to pick up a scent again, and she started methodically working back and forth up the driveway. The peculiar thing happened when she got to where she went to the bathroom. Here, she very intentionally smelled all around and then just as intentionally started shoveling gravel to cover where she peed.
It took her no more than two minutes to satisfyingly, based on her assessment of the work, cover her tracks, so to speak.
Almost sheepishly, she walked away and into the house, her nose dusted with dirt and fine gravel.
Huh?
Olive has never done anything like this before. And perhaps as interestingly, did not do the same thing the next morning, or any subsequent morning since.
The smell-scape of dogs is a constant mystery to me. This event, so far, was unique. What was out there that morning? What creature crossed over the driveway and left some olfactory track that inspired (scared? worried?) Olive into covering her own? What about the day after removed the concern? Was this even an external thing? Could Olive have felt sick and wanted to hide the fact that she wasn’t doing well to any would-be predators? And why, in a decade of walks, has this happened precisely once?
Uldis Roze, known for his work on North American porcupines, says that in “wildlife research, we follow a subject with a will and personality of its own. We must always wonder whether the behavior observed is typical of the species, typical of the individual animal, or not typical of anything.”
I am not sure how many other dogs do this. Scanning my memory of our various canine companions over the years, I don’t come up with another incident. As for Olive, this has not been one of her behaviors. And in terms of “not typical of anything?” Well, I just can’t quite believe this was nothing.
And so, the stories continue to flow and ebb. Perhaps that single jackrabbit I see at random times throughout the year just happened to cross here. Or maybe one of the rubber boas slithered through this precise place. Or maybe…
Certain riddles will never be solved. And that is okay with me.
Harry Weekes is the founder and head of school at The Sage School in Hailey. This is his 53rd year in the Wood River Valley, where he lives with Hilary and two mini-Dachshunds. The baby members of their flock have now become adults—Georgia and Simon are fledging in North Carolina, and Penelope is fledging in Vermont.