As most dog owners know, a dog’s mission on a walk is to take in as many smells as its nose and respiratory system can physically handle.  And sometimes more.

Exceeding the “sniff intake threshold” (inhaling an object such as a piece of grass, a bug, or a stick) invariably results in a violent display of machine-gun-like snorting in which the dog attempts to clear its nasal passageway of whatever object was sucked up its nose during its sniffing festival.  The first time a dog owner witnesses this performance they are likely to think their dog has become demon-possessed.

You might think once the uncontrollable snorting started that the dog would want to stop the walk and get itself in order before continuing.  Not a chance.  Even amidst the dog’s apparent discomfort which is coming from the intense physical effort required to eject the unwanted nasal debris, the dog is thinking “I’m on a walk and I’m NOT sniffing stuff!  I must sniff stuff!”.  Which is why, in most instances, the dog continues to attempt to sniff.  The dog is so worried that it might miss a smell that, despite the dog’s body involuntarily trying to violently rid itself of a nasal obstruction, the dog strenuously attempts to continue its sidewalk sniffing.

This potentially self-damaging persistence commands human admiration.

No human is capable of performing an idiotic feat such as this.  Imagine a person so in love with eating cookies that, despite choking on a cookie and not being able to breathe, is STILL attempting to put more cookies in their mouth and eat them – even though common sense should lead this person to FIRST clear their airway and THEN continue shoveling cookies down.

Pepper & Basil have both done this.  Multiple times.  And because of their size, they usually sound like a broken toy when they start snorting and honking.  It’s quite amusing.

Another physical feat they like to practice on walks is the “strain forward and choke self on collar” game.  Mind you the dogs do this to themselves.  They both have retractable leashes, each of which can unwind about fifteen feet of thin, black nylon rope.  Once the rope is all let out, both dogs like to try to pull me to walk faster.  I have no desire to walk faster, and because of a physical property known as inertia, my speed change is negligible and the dogs end up tightening both of their leashes up and briefly choking.  They back down for a few seconds and lunge forward again, choking themselves.  After ten to fifteen minutes of this they tire slightly and leave a moderate amount of slack in their leashes, which allows them to walk more comfortably, now that they’ve “established their boundaries”.  They both have had the same leashes for over a year, yet this tugging game occurs every time we go for a walk.

Another very important ingredient in a good walk, according to a dog, is being able to relieve one’s self just a little tiny bit in many, many different places.  Completely relieving one’s self in only one place just isn’t any fun at all.  Pepper seems to place a particularly high level of importance on this activity.  Pepper’s ideal walk would be one where she could do a little bit (of both jobs) in EVERY yard.  There is no way for us humans to understand just how fun this would truly be.

Imagine taking a trip to the video rental store.  And stopping at EVERY building with a restroom in it not only on the way TO the video store, but also on the way BACK HOME from the video store, and relieving yourself – just a little bit – in each restroom.  This is what dogs would do if they were people.

Pepper’s Sixth Sense

Each time I take Pepper and Basil on a walk, I am preoccupied with the embarrassment which threatens me.

During our walks, Pepper somehow has the capacity to sense how many people, at any given time, are looking at us.  I am dumbfounded as to how she is able to repeatedly do this.  Pepper manifests this gift by performing scaled embarrassing doggie acts during our walk.

If very few people are watching, Pepper will do nothing out of the ordinary and actually act quite well, for a dog.  If a moderate amount of people are watching, Pepper bumps up the human embarrassment meter on her activities.

And, at the moment when the most eyes are on us, Pepper squats for her unbelievably time-consuming bowel movement.  The human embarrassment meter is pegging on this one.  During these moments time seems to stand still as I become aware of my sixth sense – reading the minds of those people watching my dog squat.

Pepper is also a bit fastidious about where, exactly, she places her bowel movement when out on a walk.  I’ve found that she prefers highly visible, freshly mowed, meticulously manicured lawns over alleyways and out-of-site patches of grass behind trees.  Pepper is seemingly very proud of what she does and wants to deny no one the opportunity of seeing what she can do.
 

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