My companion on these woodland walks is Fred (Irish Terrier) and he has a very different agenda from mine, he is able to engage more directly than me immersing all his senses into the experience. We are both equally immersed in our own way. He runs off out of sight exploring looking for squirrels, I hold conversations with myself plot, plan and review situations in my life. Fred has no such worries, its all about the moment, the here and now for Fred. Intermittently I see him and often hear him nearby moving through the understory or shrub layer of the woods while I walk along the single track which is a mountain bike term for the narrow winding paths over tree roots, between the trees and across streams. We do communicate sometimes whereby if we reach a fork or junction I whistle very loudly and shout ‘wego thisone Fred’ which has become just a sound he recognises the words are totally meaningless. Fred will run by just to show me that he is not lost, and see which way I have actually gone. Sometimes I whistle loudly at a junction and what I get back is a couple of squeaky barks, this means, ‘I’m not coming now I’m busy’. I have to make a decision whether to carry on or wait at the junction till he comes. Usually, I carry on a little way whistle again and he runs up and checks in, all is well and we carry on.
However sometimes the bark sounds a little more intense and he does not run past after whistling 2-3 times, 4-5 times this is the signal that the ‘Squirrel Button’ has been pressed! When pressed it stays on. Sometimes I can turn it off with a dog treat and a little encouragement. But now and again it jams and I can’t turn it off. Today’s walk is one of those walks when the button has broken and JAMMED ON. In this situation from years of our relationship together I know Fred will not come to me for all the tea in China. I have to retrace my steps and follow the barking and eventually find the location where he has become fixated and utterly focused and obsessed. This will be ring 3-4 trees fairly close together where a squirrel has run up and passed across to another tree through the intertwining branches overhead. Fred rotates in a systematic routine barking up the trunk of each tree in turn, regardless of where the squirrel has gone. This circular loop cannot be broken and it is the record on the turn table that has become stuck.
As I approach Fred to put him on his lead he will run off to bark at another tree in his collection of targeted trees. I play piggy in the middle while he runs from tree to tree. I have in the past tried to wait till he gets bored and is just ready to move on. This has never worked and the length of wait remains unknown. So, I do wait by one tree patiently waiting my moment. Fred routinely checks this tree but on the opposite side of the trunk to where I am waiting and eventually when he is close enough and I feel the moment is right, I pounce and grab him and have to wrestle him down to the ground and get his lead on. In the past he has evaded me, or managed to wriggle free during the wrestling match and when this happens the whole thing has to start again and be repeated. Today I get him, squash him and hang on for dear life and get his lead on quick.
Success
But that is not the end of it. On previous occasions we have walked a quarter of a mile further on away from the ring of trees with Fred constantly stopping, pulling and wanting to turn back making any progress very slow, but gradually calming down and walking in the right direction. But as soon as I let him off the lead he has turned and run all the way back to continue rotating his patrol again. Not today. I pick him up and carry him across my shoulders like a Neolithic hunter carrying a deer out of the woods with me holding his legs on my chest. He wriggles now and then but I’m not giving in. It is about half a mile back to the car and as we get within a few hundred yards I put him on the ground and we walk the rest on the lead.
