A Walker in the Suburbs

The book I was reading as I fell asleep last night was Pack of Two by the late Caroline Knapp. In it she describes the unique bond between human and canine.

And coincidentally, the canine most in my mind and heart right now was sitting at the top of the stairs, where he knows he shouldn’t be, when I woke up early this morning. I wanted to be angry at him, but I couldn’t. It’s because I had just read words like these:

Here I am with my dog. Me and my dog. The closeness feels like a private bridge, extending from human to animal …  The causeway is constructed of ritual and repetition and simple moments, of behaviors discovered and then executed exclusively between human and dog, and there is something exceptionally restorative about crossing it day after day.

The bridge I cross most often with Copper consists of throwing the little guy a day-glo orange tennis ball. He runs, jumps, leaps, catches it on the fly or sometimes trots into the bushes to retrieve it, and lopes gratefully back to drop the ball at my feet so we can repeat the ritual over and over again. For some reason, he does this best (actually only!) with me.

It is our “causeway,” our “private bridge.” And I’m grateful for it.

This happens quite often, especially as the days lengthen and the air warms.

I’ll walk outside first thing in the morning (on days when I don’t leave before dawn), and I’m greeted with a great flapping and scampering. It’s the robins and jays flying away as the door squeaks open, and the squirrels scampering up the tree as I head past them to the mailbox.

But the overall effect is one of breaking up a party. It’s like entering the room of a teenager or joining a conversation that suddenly stops as you come near. The birds and small mammals have obviously been up to something they don’t want me to share. And that’s okay. I understand, really I do!

All of this is to say that wild things have their own world, their own hearts and habits. It’s comforting to know that I don’t belong; it’s comforting to know it’s nothing personal.

Cold air and snow drive the wild things closer to civilization. A bluejay perches on the rim of a wrought iron chair, pecks at the peeling paint, fluffs his feathers — his broad back to the window, a flick of his beak then he’s gone.

Minutes later, a fox trots across the yard, sleek, rangy, in no hurry as he makes his way to the woods. Searching for food, for small animals driven out of hiding.

And yesterday, on the way to the post office, I saw three vultures tearing at a dead deer beside the road. 

We may mulch our gardens, mow our lawns and prune our trees. But the animals know we are just visitors here.

Six years ago we surprised Claire with a dog from the pound. He was a funny looking animal, advertised as a border collie basset hound mix — but there must be at least half a dozen (unadvertised!) breeds in his pedigree.

Claire had been begging for a dog for months and we had held off, but two days after we learned she’d have to wear a back brace for scoliosis, we adopted Copper.

Early signs were not auspicious.  He ate underwear, socks and eye medicine. He bit people. He ran away on numerous occasions, including the first time we tried to get him out of the car.

But there was always something about him, something ragged and rambunctious and loving, that gave us hope. He was — and still is — the embodiment of joy. A reminder that happiness doesn’t always fall into our laps; that we have to search for it, allow ourselves to be disrupted for it, even sometimes pretend we have it when we don’t.  Pretend long enough, though, and it begins to feel like we do.

Photo: Claire Capehart

As Copper has (ahem) matured, his inner shepherd, the genetic tendencies of his border collie genes, have emerged. When he was a puppy, he couldn’t do anything for more than a few minutes. Now, he spends hours on the slight rise in our backyard, using the humble altitude to better survey his domain.

He sits still, but he isn’t idle. His eyes dart to the left and to the right. He scans the fence for sudden movements in the brush. His ears prick at any tiny rustle in the leaves. I have to imagine he is doing all this to protect his pack.

Watching him watch for us, I see a model of vigilance, of doggie loyalty — of what it means to protect and defend.

Over a fun dinner out last night, a conversation about cats and dogs. Celia, who adores our canine Copper, still prefers cats because she’s never met two that are alike, she says. Dogs, on the other hand, are always the same. Panting, licking, looking for love.

I can’t say that she isn’t on to something, but given how much attitude I have to accept in people,  I’m looking for something a little less complicated in pets. Loyalty. Obedience. Unconditional love. Or at least two of the three.

Above, a cat with attitude and a loyal, loving (but disobedient) dog.

We live in a tame world that is full of wild things. Deer run and play and graze in herds of a dozen or more. They scamper away when they sense us nearby — but not before they have taken all the blooms off our lilies or hostas. Bears have been spotted as close in as Falls Church and as close by as Loudoun County, a few miles west.

Sometimes at night we hear a fox. The sound is piercing, unnerving, otherworldly. Easily mistaken for a riled up cat or any animal on its deathbed.

We heard it a few nights ago, a keening cry that made Copper bark and me leap out of bed. It took a few minutes of waking up and orienting myself before I realized what had caused the ruckus.

Ah, it’s a fox, I said to myself. That which was once alien and unknowable is now familiar — in a wild sort of way.