#61 PUPPY -- FINGERNAILS & COMPARISONS

“Did you see that, Mom?

“I saw that.”

“Were you watching?”

“I was.”

“But you’re not watching now.”

“Right. I’m checking my broken fingernail, thanks to you.”

“But you saw . . .”

“Scooter! I saw, yes.” I checked my right ring fingernail. Half of the free edge missing.

“It was beautiful, Scooter. I must admit, it was beautiful.”

A Canada goose pair stood mid-way up Scooter’s Stick Retrieving Hill as he, our friend, Crow, and I began an ascent. We had completed two circuits around the retention ponds where Scooter practiced patience as Crow and Company retrieved peanuts from split-rail fenceposts.

 “Good job, Scooter.”

Crow expected the treats, I provided them. Scooter knows Crow now, and Crow knows the measure of Scooter’s leash. He walks or flies with us no closer than six feet.

The web-footed pair from Canada turned their heads our way as we climbed. Crow landed a few feet behind them.

“You’re not planning on geese getting my peanuts,” Crow seemed to ask.

“Geese!” said Scooter, suddenly noticing.

“No!” said I.

“No!” signaled closest goose, standing tall.

“Honk!” said partner goose.

That’s all he needed, my twenty-seven-pounder with the middle name, “Sublime.” Off he went! Off my hand he jerked the leash, poop bags and my housekey attached.

“Slam!” Scooter’s front feet stretched, hit, and gripped the ground, generating a gorgeous gallop.

Why on earth do we marvel at a horse’s gallop and not the gallop gait of a dog? Horses have rather rigid spines and ribs, and dear goodness, a huge intestinal situation. At least in my mind, fifty to seventy feet of four-inch digestive hose with two storage compartments easily holding more than twenty-some gallons of digestion is enough to slow a gallop.

Dogs have a streamlined digestive tract and one little storage stomach to hold stuff; fewer ribs, a marvelously flexible spine, a longer loin area, and comparatively speaking, much stronger abdominal muscles than a horse has.

A dog produces forward motion by flexing and extending its spine. Listen to this—the Greyhound at a gallop has a stride length approximately the same as a winning Thoroughbred horse. The same. Got that? I love horses, but you’ll never see a horse extend its legs forward and backward like a dog does. Like Scooter, in pursuit of geese; stretched in the air between strokes, like a professional ice-skater’s split jump.

It was a marvel, Scooter’s run. Forget those cute sedentary tricks he performs: sit pretty, turn, crawl, hide, foot, touch, weave, look, catch, speak, leave it, take it, push, find it, head down, supine, and any assortment of little diddies.

“That stuff,” says Scooter, is “people stuff stuck on dogs.”

“I see that,” I admit.

“Mom, listen. We dogs have front legs horses can only envy. We have two bones between our elbow and wrist that let us rotate on their axes. Pay attention, Mom. My front legs are loose and flexible, they do the steering, they control sharp, accurate turns, and quick stops. You saw that as I raced down the hill, right?”

“After the geese? Yes, I saw that.”

“Remember,” he said.

“You’re not done?”

“Remember, my sturdy back legs are as different from my front ones as your arms differ from your legs. My back legs are fairly rigid, tight. Muscle, Mom. Only muscle connects those loose front legs to my torso.

“But I think that’s true of the horse, Scooter.”

“Big deal,” says he. “Forget horses. I have tiny feet with amazing pads. And before you forget about horses, let me add this: my feet feel more sensations that hooves; they grip better, too. You know my feet.”

“I do. I massage them.”

“You do, and I’m grateful. Thanks for not painting my toenails.

“Never,” I say. “Speaking nails . . . ,” said I, meaning to call attention to my broken one.”

“Speaking of feet,” said he. You saw how my feet gripped the ground, and how I instantly halted my gallop at the fence the geese flew over?”

“I did.”

“Just one more little matter to seal the deal between the gallop of a lumbering heavyweight and a dog.”

“Horse?”

“A horse has hooves. I have six sensitive pads on each foot. Well, probably only five on my rear feet. You can check on that. But on my front feet? Just above the dewclaw? By the way, Mom, thanks for not taking off my dewclaws, but you know about those. Just above the dewclaw is my Carpal pad. Most of the pads work to keep me balanced, but the carpal pad is high enough on my foot that if I’m only ambling, or even trotting, it serves no purpose.

“But!” said he with renewed purpose. “If I’m galloping? During those tight turns? Slam! The force of my run is so great that mid-stride, for a split second, those high carpal pads hit the ground, absorb the shock, and aid the turn. And . . .”

“You aren’t done?”

“Not. That full stop you saw me make at the split-rail fence. Ha! Carpel pad at work. Brakes. They aren’t called Stopping pads for nothing. Ask any horse if it can show you its stopping pads!”

“Scooter, stop it with the horse stuff!”

It was quite a sight. Two geese on the wing, one Crow with me watching, Scooter in (go ahead, say it) hot pursuit. True, he broke the leash law—not that he wasn’t wearing the leash, he was. Rather, he broke free, he tore the leash from the hand of his human, breaking the free-edge of one of her nails; he abandoned all training. He was 100% dog on a personal mission. Then, he galloped back to me, full speed. He was one happy animal. There was no scolding. I simply couldn’t.

We bade Crow goodbye. We searched the hill and found my key. We walked home, Scooter obediently at my side.

It was wrong, that breakaway gallop.

It was beautiful.

My nails all have been cut short.

Scooter’s leash training has been renewed.

There are no horses at our house.