My dog and I took a longer walk than normal out in the desert this morning. There was a fair breeze blowing. I found two nice sized pottery shards from the prehistoric peoples who inhabited this land a thousand or more years ago.
After the dog and I had already gone about 1-1/4 miles, Inu took off chasing a rabbit. I didn’t pay any attention because this is quite normal. But when he had been gone almost 20 minutes I began to get a little concerned.
Using the GPS I started backtracking and calling out his name. I would get up on the top of sand dunes and call out to him. I was feeling very self confident so I’m sure my voice sounded optimistic and in fact a bit macho. But after backtracking a good long way I have no doubt that my tone of voice was beginning to sound a little less confident. In fact it probably was beginning to sound a bit desperate. I was having all sorts of horrible fantasies about what had happened to my best friend. I was feeling a little guilty too, because I had been wearing the headphones listening to George Harrison. So if he had called out to me I probably would not have heard him.
Here is what the track log looks like.
We normally go about 1.0 miles total, and after I had gone almost 1.75 miles I was nearing exhaustion myself. So I decided to walk to the car, thinking I would drive around the desert on the dirt roads calling out to my little buddy.
When I got about ½ mile from the car I saw a tiny little black dot sitting in the middle of the dirt road about 150 yards away. I yelled his name, and as soon as he realized that it was me, we ran towards each other like a couple of long lost lovers. Well, perhaps it was more like me being an elderly man waddling along at top practical speed franticly waving my arms, and him the fantastic athlete that he is actually leaving a dust trail behind him as he hauled his tight little furry black ass in my direction.
Inu is so incredibly intelligent. I’m sure if he were telling the story he would say that all along he knew where he was, that in fact the problem was that his human got a bit lost. This is not a correct description of the facts though, since I am the one who was carrying the GPS.
Once Inu realized that we were separated, rather than wander around desperately, he ran ahead to a cross roads of 3 dirt roads about 1/3 of a mile from where the car was parked out in the desert. He knew (correctly) that whichever direction I came from, if and when I returned to the car I would pass that point. This is where he was patiently waiting when I saw him.
My Hero: Inu The Super Dog!
-
-
-
-