June 10, 2021

“What are these?” Scooter asked, sniffing freshly cut flowers. He was suspicious. “What are they doing where Dad sits to call me for my halter and leash?” He’s not in the best of moods. 

“Go ahead, give them a sniff,” I say. “You need a pleasing distraction.”

Scooter and I had just come in from a mid-day walk where the moment he left the apartment building his nose lifted to the air, and his body said, “No going any further than this square of the sidewalk three feet from the door. There is something amiss. I smell it.” 

I know dogs have a bi-jillion olfactory receptors compared to the scant few in humans. I don’t know how many muscles are in a dog’s nose (I think people have five), but Scooter’s black nose was a-twitch with intense concentration. If the experts are right, had I paid attention to Scooter’s nose rather than his sudden stubbornness, I might have seen that, in dog fashion, when he sniffs benign things he begins with his right nostril then shifts to the left to recheck his conclusions. “Oh, sure, that’s my friend, Rich.” On this occasion, however, Scooter was overworking the right nostril, a tunnel to a brain transmitting the need for fear or aggression. 

“Scooter, come!”

Scooter resisted. He breathed as I can’t—in and out at the same time. He snorted on the exhale, as if to expel danger, as if shaking something sinister from his sinuses. I’d never seen that before. 

“What!?” said I, searching with my eyes what his nose knew.

“Surely you can sense the danger,” he signaled by resisting any movement further down the sidewalk, his nose wiggled toward the sky, pulling information from the brisk breeze, raising questions only he can ask. Ours was a torturous walk that day. I noticed blossoming flowers and trees. I felt the warmth of the sun. I tugged on the leash. Scooter found danger in blades of grass, over the side of a hill, in the crevices between rocks on the road where we walked. I pulled. He plodded. We both protested.

“Here, Scooter,” I said, trying to calm the boy. “Smell the flowers.” We had returned to our home. He can’t see the bouquet colors, given that dogs (even Scooter) only see in shades of yellow and blue; no recognition of green to red. But, who needs all that color? Scooter sniffs out distinguishing differences in the bouquet, who touched what flower, and approximately how long ago.  

“But why are they here, where Dad sits to prepare me for our walks? Why are they Here?”

I have Scooter’s permission to tell you that he is a worrier. Here he is in his “worry chair.” 

If all is well, once the boy’s enormous energy has been adequately exhausted, we find Scooter at rest either in his fluffy bed, atop our bed, scrunched under the living room sofa, or atop my writing desk watching the world outside. But when, or if, he is worried, he assumes this “Do you realize there is a problem?” posture in the chair seldom used by his people. His worry chair.

Scooter can be worried by such things as:

Nearly anything he hasn’t seen before.

Machinery — “What’s that? Woolf! Woolf!”

Ditto, the gardener’s large grass-cuttings barrel..

Watch Scooter leap with a yelp, leap a foot in the air, when a bush branch unexpectedly smacks his rear. He’s an explorer, yes, but he is a fearful one. 

And a dog he doesn’t know? Spare me.

Snarl! Gruff! Gruff! What IS it, mom?” says he, of a teen boy running by on the road we are walking. Small children that jump around raise worry, and worry arouses his worse voice. 

“No, Scooter! It’s good.” But, of course, it’s also too late. 

Now, nearing his second birthday (can you believe it?), Scooter possesses a mature, muscular body, a full, wavy coat his groomer dreads, a great sense of humor, intelligence, 24-hour happiness, a nose for discovery, and a good measure of worry. Best we keep cut flowers handy.