Sometimes, when the weather is too warm, when the AC is on the fritz, and the TV program we wanted today doesn’t download until Sunday next, and the news is discouraging, when you learn wine really isn’t good for you, that your six daily cups of coffee serve up herbicides and fungicides (a bit of Methyl Parathion, Endosulfan, and Chlorpyrifos, and maybe Ochratoxin A), and your kidneys complain, that’s when at our house, it’s Scooter time.

We were on a morning walk when I said, “Look, Scooter, a momma and six baby ducklings in the pond.” Scooter barked at a dog across the pond. “Hey,” I said. “Did you know that three dogs were rescued from the Titanic? They weren’t Newfoundland, but Newfoundland dogs are terrific swimmers. They have webbed feet. Did you know that? Did you hear about the black bear that swam in the pond yesterday? Swam in our pond!”

Scooter had enough of my disjointed observations.

“Mom.”

Anytime his use of my name comes with a period behind it, I know to expect a rant. “I am Poodle and Golden Retriever. I am a blend of very smart dogs. We have webbed feet.  

     I checked. He does!

“Mom.” There it was again. That full stop. “About feet. If you see me raking the earth with my hind feet after I pooder? I’m not showing off. I’m not trying to bury poop—cats are ridiculous—I’m conversing. Glands in my paw pads plant my scent, amines and acids. Along comes a dog using canine chemical sniffing skills, and learns my sex, my age, my health, my size, what I like to eat, and even my mood. Humans aren’t the only talkers, Mom. Elephants rumble messages through their trunks into the ground and other elephants, even miles away, pick it up.

“Remember that Terrier that didn’t like me when I was a pup?” Was this a question I wondered. “ Now he might catch my scent and say, ‘Ah! It’s that pup, Scooter Sublime all grown up. And he’s still on the move with the guy who wears old walking shoes.’”

“Wow,” said I, thinking he was done.

“About my nose.”

“We blogged about your nose when you were two: Puppy blog #32.

He hadn’t finished.

“I’m nearly five years old. Maybe you haven’t appreciated all there is to know about me. Long-nosed dogs are the best sniffers. I have a very long nose.

We reached home. I hung his halter in the closet. He rolled on the carpet to his back with his four feet pointing straight up.

“Dogs can breathe in and out at the same time. Can you?” he asked.

“You have one sense of smell, I have two,” he said, not a muscle twitching. I think through smell. My nostrils work independently. You know I have 300 million olfactory receptors. Count yours,” he said. “It won’t take you long.”

He rolled to his belly. He mentioned not needing a clock. He measures time by sensing air molecules or some such thing.

I was about to check out when he asked, “Did you know dog owners are less likely to die of heart attacks or strokes than people without dogs? I think cat owners are in big trouble. In my opinion.”

“Scooter!”

You should write this stuff down,” he said.

“Scooter, are you upset because I admired the Newfoundland dog? That I haven’t mentioned your birthday? What’s up with this recitation?”

“How about my ears?  Mom. Did you know that I have eighteen muscles in my ears? You know why I love my ears rubbed?” He answered. “The big vagus nerves run through my ears.”

“That’s why rubbing your ears relaxes you?”

“Exactly. Nothing like my ears.”

“Cats ears are of the same construction,” I said.

“Not possible,” he said.

“Are you not getting enough attention? Exercise? Treats? What’s with this Scooter saga?”

“Let me ask,” he said, ignoring me. “Can you do this with your ears, can cats? Rotate, tilt, move them separately, raise them, lower them, funnel sound into them, and—I hope you’ve paid attention . . . express emotion with them? I can.”

I shot back, “Like the day you nearly stepped on a garter snake, and panicked? Your floppy ears shot straight up along with your feet. Like that?”

“I can hear from under the bed when you drop a bite of broccoli in my kitchen bowl. Hundreds of feet away.”

“Your Cave isn’t hundreds of feet away.”

“But if it were . . . . Dogs hear four times better than people.”

“Scooter, you do know, don’t you, cats hear much better than dogs.”

“Stop it!”

“Cats (I couldn’t resist) hear probably twice better than dogs. In fact, . . .”

“Forget the fact.”

“In fact, cats have a broader hearing range than most land mammals.”

Scooter shook it off.

“Mom.” It was as if Scooter wiped previous words off a whiteboard. We were in new territory. No cats.

He asked, “Did you know that some countries, like Finland, don’t microchip dogs but identify them by nose print? DNPs. Yep. You probably haven’t paid attention to it, but the pattern of my nose is, like my very self, unique.”

“Are you feeling slighted? Trying to make up for chasing the crow? For barking at the person on the path? For chewing up your new stuffed toy? For not coming when . . .”

“Mom. Even now in this conversation, as we look at each other—and remember, I have three eyelids, you have only two—oxytocin, the happiness hormone, increases in both of us; it makes us feel really good. Did you know that? Better write that down. You don’t have all the skills I have, but what does that matter under the power of love?

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