Bonkers Dog

This morning I walked Bob as usual on the field. Nothing else about our walk turned out to be ‘as usual’. No sooner did his four paws hit the turf, but his nose went down and he was off! He raced around and around in circles, going as far away from me as possible, when he normally never strays further than the throw of a ball.  He didn’t stop running with his nose to the ground for a full ten minutes.

It was as if the whole the field was ALIVE! Some aroma was coming up from the ground itself that was totally intoxicating. He lost his head, his sense of hearing and all sense of being a good responsible dog!  Finally he  came to and remembered this wasn’t how walks are meant to go, even so he couldn’t quite calm down and come back to me. Utterly nutty, out of character behaviour!

The only thing I could think is that ‘Spring has sprung’, after the heavy rains of the last few days maybe new life is stirring underground in a way I cannot detect.  Either that or it was the wind. It  is  a very windy day and children and dogs are very sensitive to wind. I used to dread teaching on windy days in my last job, if misbehaviour was likely on normal days it was three times as likely on a windy day! (Why is that? Surely someone’s done some research on that?)

I’ve read that scientists are now using frogs as ‘earthquake predictors’ because they have all been observed to leave earthquake areas twenty-four hours before a quake. It all just makes me realise how immune we have become to the natural world. We don’t have noses that can smell the spring underground. But we do have eyes to see and ears to hear the intoxicating beauty of the world.

‘Lord, open my eyes, that I may see…’