Back in Vermont I often admired Bilbo's sense of time. At 4:00 pm, give or take a few minutes, he was ready for supper and made this clear. If he had an unexpected meal at 2:00 pm, he still gave me his supper time signals at 4:00. In San Miguel Bilbo's time keeping abilities have become acute. In addition to keeping track of meal and bed times (midnight), he insists that his walks be at least 30 minutes long. If less, he is reluctant to return home and whines about it. Experimenting, I tried increments of 5 minutes and found I simply can not fool Bilbo. He has clearly decided we have a deal – he will be content being an urban rather than rural dog in exchange for 4 walks of at least 30 minutes duration each. If the deal is not honored on a daily basis, he will launch his “underfoot” strategy to encourage compliance.
Our most frequent walk is to an empty lot up the street. This lot is not “empty” at all – the term reflects human bias about values in land use. From Bilbo's perspective, the lot is filled with his manna – odors. Smells from other dogs, people, burros, and small animals are regularly refreshed and therefore endlessly interesting and rediscoverable. For me, the empty lot is a high desert garden with mature cactus, prickly bushes, thistle like plants, and a variety of attractive ground flowers. Bilbo likes to graze on the long grass and we both like the absence of roof dogs so we can concentrate on the sights and smells.
Bilbo asks for his walks by putting his chin on my knee and then dancing around the hook where his leash is hung. He sits while I open the front door to check on cars, people, or other dogs in our little street. On my all clear signal, he sprints out and heads for the opposite wall to make his mark, the first of dozens on the walk. He exhibits a new behavior about this since returning to San Miguel. After marking, he fiercely paws at the ground 3 or 4 times while puffing out his chest - very manly.
Unleashed, he heads up the calle toward the lot, greeted first by Jack who lives on the carpenter's roof and makes a hiccup sound rather than a bark, and then by Mauricio, the yellow lab on Don David's roof, and finally by 2 squeaky toy poodles alerted to Bilbo's presence by the other dogs. He sits at the intersection until I catch up and then we head to the not-so-empty lot to explore as if for the first time.
Our most frequent walk is to an empty lot up the street. This lot is not “empty” at all – the term reflects human bias about values in land use. From Bilbo's perspective, the lot is filled with his manna – odors. Smells from other dogs, people, burros, and small animals are regularly refreshed and therefore endlessly interesting and rediscoverable. For me, the empty lot is a high desert garden with mature cactus, prickly bushes, thistle like plants, and a variety of attractive ground flowers. Bilbo likes to graze on the long grass and we both like the absence of roof dogs so we can concentrate on the sights and smells.
Bilbo asks for his walks by putting his chin on my knee and then dancing around the hook where his leash is hung. He sits while I open the front door to check on cars, people, or other dogs in our little street. On my all clear signal, he sprints out and heads for the opposite wall to make his mark, the first of dozens on the walk. He exhibits a new behavior about this since returning to San Miguel. After marking, he fiercely paws at the ground 3 or 4 times while puffing out his chest - very manly.
Unleashed, he heads up the calle toward the lot, greeted first by Jack who lives on the carpenter's roof and makes a hiccup sound rather than a bark, and then by Mauricio, the yellow lab on Don David's roof, and finally by 2 squeaky toy poodles alerted to Bilbo's presence by the other dogs. He sits at the intersection until I catch up and then we head to the not-so-empty lot to explore as if for the first time.
1 comment:
Good ole Bilbo...
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