The Traveler

 

by Pa Rock

Minder of Dogs

Rosie is an older dog.  She will be ten in July which, I understand, is the equivalent to seventy in human years.  Next year I will be seventy-seven and so will she!  Rosie is very sedentary.  She likes being indoors and napping.  Going outside is a bother.

Gypsy, on the other hand, is a mere pup who just turned one this past week.  She is seven in human years, or roughly a second grader -  and she tends to bounce around live a severed power line.  Gypsy lives for running free in the great outdoors.

My son named Gypsy, and I have never asked where he came up with the name.  I know that he and his friends - all forty-and-fifty-somethings - followed the sensational news stories about Gypsy Rose Blanchard, the Munchausen victim from nearby Springfield.    Those stories were winding down around the time our dog showed up.  (Ironically, none of them had heard of Gypsy Rose Lee!  Somesbody is showing their age, and I guess it's me!)

Whatever my son's logic was in naming Gypsy, he could not have come up with a more fitting moniker because, like her nomadic namesakes, the gypsies of central and eastern Europe who are often referred to as Roma or Romani -  or Travelers - our Gypsy is, deep in her heart, a traveler.

Gypsy was traveling when she found us while on an extended walk-about several miles from her home.  It took a couple off weeks, but my son was eventually able to locate her family and they came and took her home.  But Gypsy had been out and seen the world, and her wanderlust was not sated.  Soon her owners called and asked if she could come back and live with us again - and we happily welcomed her back into our home.

But Gypsy is a free spirit who likes to run free.  Our ten acres kept her satisfied for awhile, and she was very good about not straying from the property.  Gypsy is a smart young lady who knows what's what, and where she can go, and what is beyond her limit.

For awhile I could turn her out to do her business and not have to worry.  She would be back on the porch in just a few minutes ready to come back in.  But her visits outside gradually began to increase in length and she became more difficult to rein-in.  It got to where as soon as I would step out on the back porch to look and call for her, she would step behind a building or a tree and act like she could not hear me.  She was a typical seven-year-old child who wanted to set her own schedule.

Then a male dog showed up and began leading her on a merry chase.  Suddenly she thought she was an adolescent!   A trip to the vet cooled that romance.

But Gypsy still had the urge to travel.  This past Friday I let her out twice in the morning and she came back promptly both times, so I thought we were in for a good day, but when I let her out at noon she took off and was gone the rest of the day.  My son, who can be decidedly less pleasant than me when it comes to dealing with wandering canines, rounded her up when he got home from work.

Yesterday morning Gypsy and Rosie and I were again out for our constitutional just after daylight when four young boys, probably junior high students, ran down the lane looking as though they were practicing for track.  Gypsy thought that looked like great fun, but I held her tightly by the collar until they had passed and finally rounded the bend and headed off in another direction.  When I eventually let her go, she took off like a shot to catch up with the runners and make some new friends.

They were about a quarter of a mile away, but I could see them all making introductions.  After a few minutes the runners went on and Gypsy came home.

We walked some more up and down the driveway and across the yard and should have gone in, but it was a nice morning and we were in no hurry.   That was a mistake because the young runners came back by heading in the direction from which they had originally come, and Gypsy raced off to follow her new friends.  Rosie and I stayed out a while longer assuming that Gypsy would return, but she didn't.   I knew my son, who had been at work since before dawn, would soon be home, so I didn't worry - he could deal with her.

Around ten o'clock, after Gypsy had been AWOL for nearly three hours, a strange car pulled into the drive and a nice-looking woman in outdoor attire stepped out and came to the door.  "Are you missing a black and white dog?"  she said.  I admitted that I was, and we went to the car and retrieved The Traveler.  The lady, who was apparently a parent-coach, said that they were having a track meet at Galloway Park - which is about a mile from my house - and that the "sweet" dog had been there helping to run the meet.

This morning when I took Gypsy out, she was on a leash.  She does not like being on a leash.  That is not who she is.

I suspect that as I type this, Gypsy is plotting her next move on down the road.

Rosie would not leave here for love nor money.

Dogs are as different as people.

Cole Porter's hit song from 1934 could have been written for our "sweet" dog who loves to travel:

Don't Fence Me In

by Cole Porter

Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies above
Don't fence me in
Let me ride through the wide open country that I love
Don't fence me in

Let me be by myself in the evenin' breeze
And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees
Send me off forever but I ask you please
Don't fence me in

 

Just turn me loose, let me straddle my old saddle
Underneath the western skies
On my Cayuse, let me wander over yonder
Till I see the mountains rise

 

I want to ride to the ridge where the west commences
And gaze at the moon till I lose my senses
And I can't look at hovels and I can't stand fences
Don't fence me in

 

Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry skies
Don't fence me in
Let me ride through the wide open country that I love
Don't fence me in

Let me be by myself in the evenin' breeze
And listen to the murmur of the cottonwood trees
Send me off forever but I ask you please
Don't fence me in

 

Just turn me loose, let me straddle my old saddle
Underneath the western skies
On my Cayuse, let me wander over yonder
Till I see the mountains rise

 

I want to ride to the ridge where the west commences
And gaze at the moon till I lose my senses
And I can't look at hobbles and I can't stand fences
Don't fence me in