Sniffing Down a Scent

People often like to identify my profession by the title, "Dog Walker." I bristle at that term! My dogs are definitely not 'walking' and the leashes required to make them walk have long been abandoned. Besides being free to run and play as they please, they have been given another gift that goes paw-in-paw with the off-leash experience... freedom to sniff down a scent!

If you've ever watched a dog on a leash, despited their deep, drooling desire to please their master, the intrigue of a juicy smell will compel them to stop the forward motion to check it out. Risking their owner's wrath and impatient yank on their leash, they have to respond to the siren call of scent. It is hard-wired in them! If you've ever experienced watching TV without control of the remote (if you are female, this is your lot in life!), and you've found yourself at the mercy of a channel-flipping fanatic, you get a whiff of a dog's frustration. Just as something interesting catches your attention, it is whisked away in a frenzy to keep moving at all costs. For me it is easier to leave the room than wrestle with my thwarted interests. Dogs however are more faithful in their devotion to just being in your presence, and gradually learn to ignore the summons of their scent glands.

'Sniffing down a scent.' Something in this phrase resonates within me. What is it?... Freedom. Freedom to pursue a thought to fruition. Bingo! That's it! A long forgotten skill that was lost in the commotion of cradles, commitments of motherhood, carpooling and choreographing the dance steps of a busy family. Lots of leash yanking when a interesting thought presented possibilities. No time, no energy, no creativity left to sniff it out. Just tuck it away in hopes of pursuit on another day.

Empty-nesthood has been a discovery of the joys of 'off-leash adventuring.' Freedom to sniff down a thought to fulfillment and closure. Rediscovery that my scent glands still work! In fact they work even better for having experienced all the aromas of motherhood. Thoughts are deeper and richer like wine that was stored away in the dark cellars of my preoccupied brain. Finding these fermented treasures is a daily delight! (Sorry for the gush of mixed metaphors all at once...the well-spring of creative contemplation has erupted...opps, that was another one!) Bear with me as I reacquaint myself with my mind that I thought was long gone! My mental stuttering is slowly smoothing out. I now 'woman' the remote control to my own gray matter!

If you are still in the midst of leash-yanking interruptions in your life, take heart. Your ability to sniff down a scent doesn't diminish with lack of use. Store away the idea for future perusal, and as often as you can, unclip your collar for a mini 'off-leash adventure' of your own making.

Dogs are by nature territorial...or are they? I'm beginning to wonder? Out at the 100+ acre dog park in which we adventure every day, I see almost none of that energy. The open spaces seem to belong to everyone equally. At least the dogs seem to think so. No growling, posturing, snapping or protecting turf. Even my border collie becomes borderless. Oh, there is plenty of leg lifting and decorating the bushes with their scent-filled urine, but not a single dog seems pissed off if another dog tops his brew with their own concoction.

Now there is one exception. Those are dogs still attached to a leash out there. The owners swear that the dog's aggressiveness triggers the need for a leash, but I wonder if the leash creates a "territory" that the dog now feels compelled to protect. Put my dog on a leash and he is transformed into my protector, pulling out all his best aggressive moves to broadcast to other four-legged creatures that I am his and they are not to approach. The leash creates boundaries for his territory, and doggone it, he's determined to patrol it.

So what can we as humans learn about territorialism from our canine friends?

• games like Monopoly are fun, but when we approach real life with such rigid demarcations of ownership, there truly will be winners and losers...boundaries make us possessive, self-protective and fearful of losing what we own. Our stuff begins to own us.

• sharing things communally is kind of fun, bonding and freeing! Our neighborhood has no fences between the yards and the kids use the treefort in one yard, the trampoline in another, the swingset in yet another and the entire unfenced space to stage the most incredible games of "Capture the Flag" I have ever seen!

• it seems that when we begin to fear that there are not enough resources to go around that we begin to get "grabby" about staking out our claim. Isn't that the essence of the energy that triggers wars (or relational conflicts)? Self-centered focus, be it on an individual or a national level? When is enough, enough? I don't know the answer to that, but it seems like the dogs at the dog park have figured it out. I, for one, want that commitment to the communal best so we all can enjoy the beauty and resources of this incredible planet together in playfulness and peace.