Walking the Dogs

As you look southeast over a sea of tall green grass funneling down to a stately hardwood frame, the Mt. Toby range protrudes from afar with distinction, like a giant molar dwarfing lesser teeth on the lower gum of a worn mouth.

Between Toby and me is downtown Greenfield, then the Pocumtuck Range, which rises in east Deerfield, climbs to the communication towers overlooking the Eaglebrook School ski slopes and descends slowly south, dipping twice to introduce the two Sugarloafs, once my childhood playground. In Native American lore, I’d be looking at the giant beaver from the tail forward.

Behind Toby stands the Holyoke Mountain Range and proud Mount Holyoke itself, the summit of which has for parts of three centuries drawn artists, most notably Thomas Cole, whose 1836 masterpiece canvas titled “View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm (The Oxbow)” resides at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Had Cole known of this bucolic East Colrain location, he surely would have set up his easel on a promontory point during foliage peak-week; and perhaps he or someone else did compose this pastoral scene, although I have seen no such canvas.

As I stand there admiring this splendid view that never gets old, I hear panting and see flashes of white bounding over and slicing through the knee-high cover crop of rye and clover — two energetic English springer spaniels, one old, the other young, thoroughly enjoying the scent of cottontail rabbits, wild turkeys, deer, bear, squirrels, and other upland creatures on a cool damp morning. A springer’s energy is boundless, its enthusiasm infectious when scouring the field as though faced with a tight deadline.

Little Lily, a mere 14 weeks old, can’t keep up with here surrogate father, Ringo, an old pro by now, but she gives it her best shot, trailing him as far as she dares before losing ground, not to mention stamina, and sprinting back to me. It gets worse for the little lady when we reach the more-challenging high cover of golden rod made denser by a thick clover underbody, no walk in the park of any dog, especially a puppy. But Lily does her best, following the path Ringo cuts, stopping to sit and monitor his movement with her ears and bounding to try and cut him off before sprinting back to me. When she busts through the cover onto the cart path where I’m standing, she comes to greet me, wagging her tail joyfully, then sits and listens for Ringo, waits for him to get close, and scoots after him, repeating this playful ritual until we depart.

The only break the dogs take on such a walk occurs when Ringo finds a brook or mud-puddle to lay in and drink until you’d think he’d burst, as Lily stands nearby, front feet half-submerged, nibbling at the water’s surface. Don’t worry, it’s only a matter of time before she’ll be lying in the water next to him, not to mention blowing by him in the field, but it won’t be this year. Uh-uh. Not with 7-year-old Ringo in his prime.

You can’t beat the month of August for walking the dogs; it prepares your legs and theirs for the coming bird season while absorbing the sights and sounds of the habitat. You can assess the mast crop, hard and soft, read the deer and bear sign, flush turkeys and partridge, and work on dog commands in a non-threatening way while filling your lungs with invigorating country air. If the animals find something foul or rancid to roll in, no problem, just gives you an excuse to sample the refreshing water of a secluded Green River pool where, in a pinch, clothes have always been optional.

In the two months since little Lily has joined the family, I’ve toured the upland meadows near my home twice a day, rain or shine, and have seen many interesting sights that reinforce previous lessons about deer. The most memorable day so far came while walking loudly through an overgrown pasture at midday and jumping a velvet 6-pointer from a narrow row of wild apple trees I’ve passed several times on the way back to my vehicle during, gun in hand, deer season? Had it not been for an inquisitive Lily, that buck would have let us pass right by it, some 30 feet away, while I was whistling and calling Ringo off a rabbit chase. But Lily caught my attention because of the way she was standing still, semi-cowering with her nose high and pointed toward the row of apples and thick, thorny underbrush. Having seen her react similarly to cows and horses on previous walks, I was curious, so I walked toward her and spooked the buck into springing from its bed, bounding gracefully across the pasture and disappeared into the pines.

Another day in a nearby overgrown pasture bordering a lush mowing, I arrived at a high spot with Lily and was searching the golden-rod across the way for Ringo when I noticed a flash of white, then another. I first believed I had located the dog but the motion wasn’t right. Then I realized I was watching at deer, head down, trying to conceal itself as it left the premises. But when it understood that I had seen it, it picked its head up erect and bounded through the field, over a barbed-wire fence, across the mowing and into the dense vegetation of a power line — a beautiful sight to behold, a doe, perhaps 110 pounds.

After the deer disappeared, I got to thinking that if its primary goal was to elude me without being detected, it wouldn’t have been flagging furtively in the brush. The flicking of the tail had to be a signal to her fawns, which were presumably nearby. So I called, Ringo, vacated the area with my two pets and returned home.

After dinner, I convinced my wife to return to the site and walk the dogs. As we approached the farm road into the mowing, I spotted the doe feeding at the edge of the power line, some 400 yards away, and pointed it out to my wife. I told her I couldn’t understand why she was alone, that a healthy doe like her should have had at least one fawn with her. Perhaps they were victims of the first haying, I surmised out loud. But judging from the behavior of the animal when I had kicked it out of the golden rod earlier in the day, I was still convinced it hadn’t been alone.

As we retraced my steps from earlier in the day, Ringo and Lily romped through an unmowed wedge of high, wet, brown cover we were following toward the overgrown pasture that was my destination. Talking with my wife while focusing my attention across the mowing to where the doe was feeding, I paid little attention to the dogs until reaching a break in the rusted barbed-wire fence, by which time Lily had rejoined us. The three of us crossed the fence and walked to the high spot from which I had seen the doe earlier. The feeding doe would have been visible from that spot had she not ducked into the power line to conceal herself. But as I scanned the edge of the woods for her, I caught a flash in my left peripheral, then spotted a small deer that had exited the wet wedge of high cover we had just passed and was bounding across the rich green mowing. Ringo stood alert and statuesque at the side of the wedge, joining us in our admiration of the fleeing fawn, which quickly vanished into the power line.

The four of us circled the field’s perimeter back to the truck and left for home, wondering what tomorrow would bring, walking the uplands.

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