Another Afternoon, Another Forest Adventure, Another Coconut Bath for Sadie

She sure is cute. Everyone we pass on the street says so. Even the ones at whom she barks. Loudly. She reminds folks of poodles they once cared for. Her apricot coat provokes all kinds of interesting personality assessments: apricot poodles are the sweetest, most anxious, smartest, longest living, most spirited of the poodle types and so forth. One thing we can be sure about is that Sadie is a Diva.

That is why her incessant forest wanderings at the playground are such a puzzle. Running through the forest brush, probing the burrows of wild animals (mostly bunnies), and rolling on top of animal remains hardly seems the sort of activity a Diva would engage.

Yesterday, we followed her into the forest to see for ourselves why she loves it so much. It turns out that it really is great in there. It is a lot cooler in the forest than on the playground out in the sun. There are not as many annoying bugs flying around in the forest as we imagined. There is an abundance of sensory pleasure from a dog’s perspective. Dirt odors, food remnants, scent trails and hidden treasures all attract little Sadie’s attention. People and their dogs enter and leave through the upper and lower paths, so it is not lonely in there. Dogs from the playground dart in and out too, so Sadie gets to be top dog of the forest when they enter. She acts as a guide, having scouted all that is new for the day. She shows and tells what is new to the other dogs. Sadie is small, so she can probe where larger dogs cannot. We think her forest ways add to her popularity on the playground.  She cannot harass the other dogs if she is busy running around chasing birds and, well, rolling.

We have commented before and will repeat here: no matter what the reasons are behind her forest travels, they always end the same – with a bath on our back stoop!

MM & RY 2008

The Forest Ways of Sadie and Lily