On Dogs
or the dog that didn't bark. On one of the streets that I take on the way in to work in the mornings there is a house that has dachshunds in the yard. Two of them, as long-eared and shortlegged as any of their kind. Maryland, or Prince Georges' county at least has leash laws. Something that Holliston in Middlesex county Massachusetts didn't have, or didn't bother with. My memories of the back roads of my home town are mostly the memories of pedaling away from large barking dogs. Down Marshall from Gorwin till you got to Courtland at least. Holliston in those days was not the kind of town that had small dogs. These Dachshunds do not intend to be different. Their yard lies half way up a hill which slows me down as I bicycle past. They bound out into the street barking their outraged honor and proceed to run circles around the bike while taking nips at my feet. I would put my head down and strenuously push past; but as much as I don't like their clattering aggravation or getting bit I don't want to run over their little feet. Their plan of attack does not seem to assume I would ever do that either.
In most towns and places things seem to exist in their particular way by a general will. Houses and business have the same appearance, similar cars sleep in similar driveways. Dogs keep in their yards attached to leashes or behind fences. and call out to each other from their separate places. Then there will be one street where all this is off. A street one arrives on, to not observe irksome rules. It can be seen that individual people come and go - move in and move out as years go by. It is left that the street itself exists differently. That is what brings people to it. A short shaded winding street in a suburban district, an ancient left over from pre-automotive days and scarcely adapted. The spring which lends the road its name arises, as nearly as I can tell, from the golf course on the hill at the end of the street and being too little of anything to require arrangement merely flows quietly down one side of the street. Faster when it rains slower when it doesn't, but never stopping.
The other day I was able to ride past this yard with no interference. At the top of the hill where Cool Spring road comes out onto Adelphi a road crew was working, clearing branches away from the telephone wires and feeding them into an industrial chipper. There were my dogs, watching this. They saw me, but I was nothing to get excited about. They turned away with an air of Dachshund indifference. One sat placidly in the middle of the road by the truck and didn't give me another glance. The other had drifted off a ways to where he (or she) could keep an eye on the truck and nose through a neighbor's trash cans at the same time. This one regarded me for a moment, then again longer, before returning to tearing a systematic hole in a plastic bag.
I considered this. as I rode on. I was mystified, maybe a little hurt. They didn't seem to really care about me at all. Dogs have rules and these rules mean everything to them. Someone comes by your yard that's trouble, that's what that is. Someone other than the squirrels and what-not who do not care what you think of them. When you get out of your yard that's different land there. Made out of completely different stuff. You meet all kinds of pilgrims on all kinds of business in such a place. You can pick up the scent of where they've been, sometimes. But not where they're going. You never truly see the path they're on. They don't either. Maybe they've got the sense of a chicken bone ahead of them, like the one you know is at the bottom of this bag, Maybe they don't. Either way it's no time for barking. I jumped the bike up on the sidewalk on the far side of Adelphi road thinking there must be a message in there somewhere.
11:56:12 PM  ;;
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