The Roanoker - March/April 2015 - 12

R FROM THE EDITOR
Dawg: Into the Woods, into the Kitchen
Cookie rules when the lady of the house is around, and
knows her place when said lady's out of town.
THIS IS IN THE
WOODS with the
dog. Every once in
awhile - maybe every
1,000 sniffs - Cookie
gets some kind of
woodland superscent - a deer maybe - and takes off like the
tracker some of her genes must tell her she is,
or at least that her ancestors used to be. Off the
trail, up the hill, over the crest, disappearing
into the forest like a fairy tale character.
It's a classic-interaction moment for the two
hikers along for the walk.
"Finally rid of her," I get to say to my wife.
"Stop it, Kurt," Gail gets to say.
After which we walk on along in silence for
25 or 30 steps before the next inevitable step in
the process: "Cookie!" Gail calls out. "Cookie!"
Like the dog is going to actually run away
from her mistress, to whom she is as devoted
as one creature could be to another.
But even after I assert that - "That dog is
no more likely to leave you than I am" - Gail
cannot quite overcome the fear that Cookie
is going to decide to undertake the feral life
of chasing through the woods instead of the
"you-think-that-dog's-a-little-overweight?"
life of not just human food in the woods (nowhere else, of course), but also of a doublethick bed at home, and treats for doing nothing beyond being a big black dog standing in
the kitchen wagging her tail and woofing with
impatience.
Not when it's just me around, you understand. The dog, for whatever multiple attempts at training she has failed, is deeply
trained in at least this one item: Gail's home,
yes, you go in there and wag and bump and
fuss and you'll get all this faux-scolding for
such behavior, but you do still end up with

12 MARCH/APRIL 2015

The Greatest Day Hiker Of Them All (right) is nothing if not overprotective of her dog in the woods,
here along the Appalachian Trail on Tinker Mountain above Carvins Cove.

the "this is the last one!" treat.
Gail's in Richmond, as she is far too often
for her job? Well, if you're the big black dog,
you don't even come into the kitchen at nonfeeding times, because you know nothing will
come of it. If that other human in the house
has never once given you a treat, there is no
reason to suspect he might start now.
What the dog may appreciate from the notreats human, however, is pretty much total
dependability. You climb out of your doggie
bed in the morning when Gail's home, you
have no idea what might be next; she might
make the coffee, she might feed me, she might
go back upstairs awhile, she might go straight
into her office, she might sit there with the
paper . . . you just never know.
When she's not around, you know the drill:
He'll come downstairs in the dark and totally

ignore you as he undertakes to either go outside to run or go down in the basement to
get on the big stupid machine down there
for 40 minutes.
And once he comes back in or up, you
know it's time to eat. And then after he eats
and hits the shower, you know to be over
by the door because it's time to go outside.
Clockwork. No wagging, no begging, no
woofing, because you know what's going to
happen and what's not.
Maybe that's another reason Cookie loves
the woods so much, and why we do too. You're
free to look and sniff and run and explore
whatever you want to. If only we all had the
energy and enthusiasm and foolish optimisim
to run after something unseen that Cookie
knows is ready for her around every turn of
the trail.
-KURT RHEINHEIMER
THE

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