Free of the Leash
Sunday, October 12th, 2008
The dogs are chasing something along the fenceline that they can’t leave alone, a terrible way to spend one of the last warm autumn afternoons. Their barking has set off the dog across the street, Bodie, a hunting dog that spends most of his waking hours inside a small cage built beneath his owners’ elevated deck.
When they let him out, it’s usually late in the evening, well after dark, and his master plays fetch with him in the halo of porch light. He’s an exhuberant dog and surprisingly gentle for animal that is caged so often. He fetches whatever his owner throws and brings it back on the trot to the man’s hand.
This activity – rather, the sound of it – sets our dogs into a fury of barking in which, again, they run up and down the privacy fence imagining all the fun being had by another canine they sometimes listen to bark.
I suppose even in the canine community, there is a sense of keeping up with the Joneses. When Bodie is playing with his owner, our dogs probably feel left out or envious of the play going on within ear shot of the territory they protect from butterflies, grasshoppers and the occasional rowdy squirrel.
But part of me hopes that they understand how well they have it – that Bodie’s life is predominantly punishment for his breed and temperament, something he can no more control than the next dog or human being for that matter. Because of the way God made him, he’ll live his life playing a blood-thirsty sport that will at least let him run the hills and backwoods of the plain states. Autumn is Bodie’s season and, though it’s a shame to see him locked up at all, it seems especially wasteful in October.
Quail and wild turkey are wandering in open fields and even the deer have taken to mating in the moonlight. The natural order is taking its annual course as it has since the beginning of time and one dog is being denied his birth right which is to chase those animals through thickets up hillsides to strange, loud sounds ringing out behind him that suddenly felll the creatures he had on point.
If his owner is to commit the dog’s life to hunting and his days to lying on a cold cement slab, then he should use every opportunity to hunt on perfect afternoons like this so the dog can serve his purpose. Until then, Bodie is left to the annoyance of the barking from ordinary mutts – our mutts – who have lived spectacular lives free of the leash. They might be lazy and they might be bored, but their hunt is in the backyard and they give the appearance of being merciless killers as long as their target stays on its side of the fence.
