dogs

I've had a dozen dogs in my life, many of them memorable for one reason or another.

One of my early traumas concerns our family dog. When I was little more than an infant we had a daschund named Paula who was "in heat" and we had her in the house. A pack of male dogs had gathered around the back door, and I leaned against it and fell out among them. One bit me on the upper lip, so I had to get rabies shots around my navel for a month.

This spring our dog Toby's been suffering from senior moments. He is a middle-sized beagle mix, but he used to jump like an Olympian into the truck or onto the bed or couch.

Now his face is grey, he sleeps fitfully, and his back end is so stiff that he has to use doggy steps to reach the soft places he prefers.

Our dog Toby has been eating cicadas the last few weeks. I limit him to three a day, though if I let him run free and wild amid the arboreal buffet I think he'd top that in a few seconds.

You've all heard the cicadas. It's our signature summer sound in the South. If you have hardwood trees you can hear them rasping in waves. It's a sharp, rolling, rusty sound. The woods around our house are rich with them, rich in sound—and calories.

Every morning at 8 A.M. our dog Toby gets off the couch and starts bugging me to go out. He's a creature of habit, and our habit, rain or shine, is to take a ritual morning walk.

"Into the wild," I always joke as I head out the side door. Our walk is "off-road" on a narrow trail. I guess it's a little less than a mile. Though not a trip into the Alaska back country or even the Chattooga Wild and Scenic River Corridor, our morning walk is often the wildest portion of a normal day. The weather is out of my control, the footing is a little uncertain, and turns in the trail are full of surprise and delight if I pay attention.