THE VILLAGE IDIOT: Dog about town
/By John Hopkins
In my last column I had indicated that we had adopted a dog, but my terminology might not have been completely accurate. Oh, she sleeps in our house, eats her meals here and torments our cats (for the most part unintentionally) but really we are just the current custodians of her. She in fact belongs to the whole community.
Mika is a very social dog. She likes to visit, mingle, and cavort about the neighbourhood. The nice thing is that nobody seems to mind. In fact, she is a welcome visitor virtually everywhere she appears.
We probably shouldn’t have been surprised. Mika lived in our little area six or seven years before she came to stay with us permanently early this past summer. We live on a private road surrounded on three sides by the river, so there aren’t a lot of places an animal can disappear to, and we rather expected that Mika had established a pretty comfortable territory. We didn’t want to keep her tied up outside the house or walk her on a leash unless it was absolutely necessary. We felt that one of the benefits of living where we do is that an animal like Mika can have a little bit of freedom and roam around the neighbourhood.
Still, we were a little concerned when she disappeared the first few times. One minute she was lying peacefully on the porch and then she was gone, nowhere to be seen. Sometimes she would come calmly trotting down the driveway after 20 minutes or so, but on a couple of occasions she didn’t, and we would start walking through the neighbourhood anxiously calling for her. Inevitably we would find her, sitting on a nearby porch, perhaps getting a view of the river from a different location, sniffing some new scents or, more likely, visiting old friends or making new ones.
As we learned, there are folks Mika has been visiting on a regular basis her whole lifetime here. As we also learned, she is very eager to introduce herself to newcomers and make them feel welcome. Once I found her on the deck of a family that had once been her next door neighbour. Worried that she had been a nuisance, I asked if she had been there long. “Oh no,” the wife of the family replied with a casual smile. “Only half an hour or so.”
On another occasion, when she had gone to pay her respects to the new owners of her previous home, I apologized and acknowledged that not everyone is a dog lover. “Oh, we’re not dog people,” one of the family members said, “but this one’s lovely. She can visit any time.”
It has been much the same when we take Mika for walks. One minute she is trotting alongside us, the next she is darting down a driveway to say hello or check if anyone is home. Initially we cringed as she barked at a door or made a fuss around someone. But then we came to realize she’d been doing it for years and she was always welcome. At some places she would get fussed over, others make a point of having a treat ready for her (good thing she is getting plenty of exercise).
Our next door neighbour is a particular favourite. On an almost daily basis Mika will trot over, stand outside the door or bark if she feels it necessary, and stay and visit for as long as three or four hours. During the summer, when our neighbour left her porch screen door open, Mika would calmly just wander into the house. One afternoon, however, the screen was closed and we heard a loud commotion as Mika burst through the screen to get into the house. A few minutes later, as I made repairs to the damaged screen door and reproached Mika for her carelessness, I wasn’t sure what our neighbour was more upset about, the damaged door or the possibility I might revoke Mika’s visiting privileges. Eventually, our neighbour took the blame for the whole incident, saying it wasn’t really Mika’s fault, since the door was usually open. Mika is still permitted visits, and she is a little more careful with screen doors.
Mika is truly an anomaly. She is the uninvited guest who is nevertheless welcome at any social occasion. She has unceremoniously crashed a family barbecue only to be welcomed with smiles, laughs and squeals of delight from the kids. She is Norm from Cheers, getting a rousing welcome from everybody in the room when she makes her appearance. She may even be turning into a bit of a society status symbol.
“Where’s Mika? I was told she was going to be at this bonfire.”
“I think she stopped at the marshmallow roast three doors down.”
“Ugh. I told you we shouldn’t have come here. No wonder it’s so dead.”
Nancy and I knew that it would be beneficial to keep Mika in the community for her sake. She would benefit from the familiarity of the neighbourhood. But we hadn’t really appreciated how much the community would benefit. Without trying to sound presumptuous, we feel pretty good about how she is still able to connect with the folks who have known her for so many years, and how she can wriggle into the lives of new residents, even when they’re not “dog people”. Our next door neighbour is retired and lives alone; it is probably not practical for her to have a dog of her own. Yet Mika will regularly stop by, trot inside, and keep her company for a part of the day.
We are less uptight about Mika wandering off, or – “taking herself for a walk” as we now call it. She has her own agenda – people to visit or places to stop in. She will make her social calls and eventually trot back down the driveway for some dinner and a nap. And we will be ready for her, making sure she’s well looked after until it’s time for her to make her rounds again.
