Coureur des bois

She's crafty, my girl. In the nine months or so that she has been off-leash, Eska has never once run off on her own. Never, that is, until this weekend.

That's not to say she's been perfect; she hasn't. I made the mistake of letting one bright-orange hatted, long white bearded man feed her stale granola once, and she followed him into the woods every time she saw him for at least one whole season. And it never takes her much, besides, to decide that if the Wyman Park stream is good enough for Odie or Hero, it's certainly no match for her.

This weekend was different.

"We're going to see your boy B today, girl," I told her as we headed to the park where Brian would be meeting us. She played it cool, despite the 80 degree temperature. By the time we got there, the park was empty: traffic had come and gone, it seemed, and taken with it the tennis ball I left there last week for dry spells like these. No matter, Eska has always been able to entertain herself; she walked over to the marshy area by the stream, sniffed around, looked back at me coyly - twice - before deciding to beeline it into the woods through a hole in the fence and drift far into the muddy construction site on the other side of it, impervious to my calling ...

... precisely three minutes before Brian arrived.

Well, he hadn't signed up for search and rescue duty, but he complied happily and within less than ten minutes, Eska heard (or smelled or sensed) us and came running back.

And of course, because it wasn't enough for her to have Brian- with whom I am trying hard to reestablish a functional friendship - swoop in for the save at a moment of pure panic, she had then to spend the rest of the day walking between us, or weaving around us so that we were constantly invading each others' personal space or otherwise forced to look "cute" to anyone else walking past us.

And she did it so well that it didn't even feel like invasion. It might as well have been 101 fucking Dalmations.

Sneaky little shit. I always thought she preferred the chef.

Hrm.

Tel mère ...

Maybe I've conditioned her too well; all those walks to Sherwood Gardens must have put ideas in her head. Still, I'm happy to know that Eska's favourite flowers are tulips -- she won't eat any of the others I buy. My heady hyacinths have been sitting in their vase, untouched, a full two days now.

Unprecedented.

We are so much alike, my girl and I.