A Paws to Reflect on Hiking
June 11, 2009
By Nancy Menefee Jackson
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YahooMyWebI love hiking with a dog.
Their sheer joy and exuberance about being in the woods (or the creek! or the field!) gives me a new perspective. On a humid day, we head through the woods toward a small creek with a sandy bottom and gentle riffles over gravel. My dog A.J. exudes gratitude as he wades into the cool water, and he laps up several mouthfuls with such enthusiasm that for one minute I wonder what it would be like to cup my hand and drink the cool water. I know better than to give in to such temptation, though, since I’m in an area of suburban run-off.
As we leave the creek, we pass several downed logs, and A.J. leaps over them like a dog with a mission, ducking beneath brambles, bounding up small hills. Then he settles into a steady trot to forge ahead up the trail.
The moss on the side of a tree trunk deserves a careful sniff, as does all manner of foliage, whether it’s last year’s fallen leaves or this year’s greening shoots.
He’s simply so happy to be exploring the woods, and I never fail to be cheered by the sight of a living creature so obviously enjoying himself — a small joy that I can make happen for him.
But then, nose to the ground, A.J. begins to paw at something under the leaves and I see the telltale buckling of his shoulder. I give a sharp “come” command, hoping to stop him in the instant before he rolls in something dead, decaying or excreted from some other species.
That’s the point where our definition of what makes us happy veers apart, and the leash makes its appearance. He’s had the joy of running free, and I have — just barely — the contentment of heading home with a tired dog who won’t require a bath.
Nancy Menefee Jackson is a Baltimore-area journalist whose articles about sports, recreation and the outdoors have appeared in the Baltimore Sun, The Equine Journal, Mid-Atlantic Thoroughbred magazine and PressBox.
Nan, that’s a damned good piece — especially for those of us who have had to ride home in the same car with a pet who has dipped that shoulder and beaten us to the punch!!!!!!
Our dog isn’t as spry as AJ these days — Somerville is closing in on 15 years, and her days of carrying her own camp backpack with her daddy are gone, I’m afraid. Yet just this weekend, she went for a few miles along the NCR with her dad, and for a while the old girl looked young again, I hear, with the same “stop and sniff” approach and joy at being in the wild…something we humans all too often forget.