Timmy’s in the Well

I’ve always thought that Molly, as a dog, was purely ornamental. Her ears work intermittently and sometimes not at all, and her nose is useless, and some days I’ll stand in the kitchen while she runs around the house looking for me. I always tell her she needs to work on that, because if I’m ever lost in the woods, who will find me?

But this morning I saw a little spark of hope that maybe Molly is a dog after all. We went for a little early morning walk down to the river to see how the beaver dam was progressing. Luke and I broke it clear apart on Sunday and this morning it was blocked again (those rats!). I was down on the shore taking pictures of the dam, and as I came up the slope of the bank, Molly was coming toward me from the opposite direction. As soon as she made eye contact with me, she made a tight U-turn, ran a few steps, then stopped and turned to look at me again. Was she pulling a Lassie? Did she want me to follow her?

I followed her down the path to the thing she wanted me to see: a deer leg. Nice. She was so proud, looking down at the leg, then up at me, then down at the leg. Thanks. It looks like maybe coyotes de-legged a carcass and left it behind in the field. As unpleasant as that was, I was thrilled to know that Molly could not only find something, but also tell me about it and get me to follow her to it. I may not have to worry about wasting away, lost in the woods any longer. Of course, I may need to camp next to a deer carcass to get her to find me, but hey, we’re making progress.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The title, “Timmy’s in the Well” is our term for anything Lassie-ish that Molly might do.  It’s from the old Lassie show, you know, when Lassie would bark and someone would ask, “what’s that, girl?  Timmy’s stuck in the well?”