Into the Wild

Some people believe to truly be in the wild, you have to be alone.  I have found that it takes a dog to not only get me into the wild, but to remind me of wildness.  Murphy and I have had adventures in nature since she was a small pup.  From cross-country skiing in the Shawangunks to hiking the Appalachian Trail in Connecticut, Murphy's formative months began our lifetime of into the wild together.

By wild, I don't mean living in a deserted bus in the Alaskan wilderness.  I believe you can find wild in numerous settings, including urban.  But it has taken Murphy to help me witness the wild.  A cock of her head makes me look up and see a fox, her nose in the air indicates the deer may be near-by, a water stop on a trail allows me to stop and actually see the mountains.  

There have been scary moments.  Like the time we watched a grizzly swim the North Fork of the Flathead and ascend the bank less than 100 yards from us.  Or the time the Moose in Jackson decided it didn't particularly enjoy Sage barking at her.  Or the Bison in North Dakota, contemplating a mad charge for Murphy, hanging out the car window.  

But really what matters are the daily doses of wild that we have together.  If we are not out on the Yakima enjoying the autumn colors and the kingfishers flying low over the river, we are taking our late afternoon walks.  Yesterday we descended the steep hill to a creek that was blown out in flooding about a month ago.  The trail is precarious, but Murphy follows me, and I keep an eye on Sage.  The fly fisher in me scans the creek, noting likely places that would hold fish, if there were fish.  But really, I listen for birds.  Winter wrens, Bushtits, Juncos.  And yesterday we heard, then saw, a Pileated woodpecker flying overhead.

There is a belief, particularly among people who perceive of themselves as naturalists, that there is no place for dogs in the so-called "natural world."  Dogs should be leashed, guarded, confined.  They believe that dogs harm nature.  They chase birds, run through wildlife habitat, leave their poop.   My all time favorite sign that reflected this attitude was at Mt. Rainier National Park: "No Dogs On Snow."

As a forester, I could go into all the ecological reasons that this theory is ridiculous, but really my problem with this belief is by restricting dogs from the natural world it essentially means you are restricting humans.  I suspect that there are people who want to restrict us from being in the wild.  They want to fence off nature, make it into some sort of museum, regulating humans into designated paths, appointed times, and naturalist-only-guided tours.  

More importantly, in limiting dogs we prevent them from experiencing a part of their souls, that undomesticated strand of being within them that wants to lift their nose and smell the elk, leap into a prairie pothole, or do a mad dog through a meadow.

Murphy has taken me into nature.  Every day.  I know that in our walks, runs, romps, I have found the calm to deal with New York City subways, Yale exams, my father's heart attack, and all the other stresses and strains of life.  Every day we see something new.  The Pileated woodpecker, a trilliam, the sunset against the stand of Douglas fir.  For fourteen years, our walks have been into the wild.

Murphy's day.