Listening to Seymour

Listening to Seymour. Do you mean the dog Seymour? That Seymour?

I do.

You most likely know that dogs don’t talk. Well, in a language easily understood as English. And yet, most of us dog lovers get to understand cries, barks, and stares with remarkable accuracy. I do that too. But occasionally, I stop listening to Seymour. Like last Sunday morning.

It was the first sunny day after over a week of dreary, rainy days. Rare for us, appreciated because we are in the desert but a sunny morning in May…who can resist a hike?

A hike where we live is- indeed- a hike.

This is the path up into the mountains behind our house. If we go all the way to what I call the platform, we’re gone for two and a half hours and are moving the entire time. Because this isn’t our territory. Instead it’s where the mountain lions, coyotes, deer roam undisturbed.

Because I know that Shadow and Seymour possess vision and scents of smell far superior to mine, I usually pay attention to what they are saying.

But not Sunday morning.

It was too beautiful not to push it all the way to the top. To sweat even though it was very cool. To work as we climbed. And so each time Seymour stopped, looked back and made it evident that he wanted to turn around, I ignored him.

After the 8th or 9th stop as we climbed, I got annoyed. “Come on let’s go.” And pulled his leash up and up. The presence of the other never occurred to me. Not once.

My friend and neighbor posted this a few days ago on her Face Book account after a horseback ride up the trail:

Right. Bear tracks.

Why did Seymour want to keep wanting to turn around Sunday morning?

That superior sense of smell was on overload. There was something there he wanted to leave behind him- way behind. Once I saw Victoria’s photo, I decided to stay on the lower trail.

Would the bear have attacked us? Probably not, we don’t have grizzlies here, most likely the tracks are from a black bear. And they aren’t aggressive. Usually.

But this is spring- they may have a baby. So, for now, we’ll be staying off the high parts of the mountain.

Lesson learned: Keep listening to Seymour.