March Morning

Larsen hunts along the Alatoona shoreline.

 

But here they come, here comes the pack, and instantly the whole horizon is charged with a strange electricity; it begins to move to stretch elastically.  [. . .]  There it is, there's the pack! Thick saliva, panting, chorus of jaws, and the arcs of tails excitedly; whipping the countryside! The dogs are hard to restrain; their desire to hunt consumes them, pouring from eyes, muzzle, and hide. Visions of swift beasts pass before their excited eyes, while, within, they are already in hot pursuit.

         Jose Ortega y Gasset, "Meditations on Hunting," p. 87.

Larsen and I went to Lake Alatoona Saturday morning for some free time.  I put the e-collar on him, but didn't bother with the clicker.  Just something to prevent him from getting collar-wise.  I can't remember the last time I charged it and used it.  I want to have it ready, though, for Judge Joe.

Without a dog, you really don't bother getting up at 6:30 on a Saturday.  Certainly not to go for a walk along the lake, 40 miles from home, in the chill of March.  With a dog, everything changes.  What would have been a static routine walk along the lakeside becomes electric, and stretches elastically, as a spaniel forgages along the very steep gradients of the lakeshore.

Larsen and I started along one of Aki's secret little paths.  Larsen was hunting. I glanced around and caught the sight of three or four deer galloping off.  Ok, so turn around.  Try another path.  I don't feel today like tracking down an errant, deer-chasing dog.

The lake is very low.  It has been drained, more or less, here at winter's end.  Later in the morning, the Boy Scout troups will earn badges by policing the rocky shore.  In a week or so, the Corp will close the locks and let the lake refill over the balance of the spring.