|
|
It seems to happen to me quite often. I'll be walking somewhere and a stray dog will appear and attach himself to me. It happened a few months ago in a small town in northern California. I was up early, out for a stroll in the morning sunlight - I think it was the last day of sunlight before El Nino hit town. This day though was beautiful, crisp, almost summery. Shirtsleeves weather. A black dog appeared about two houses out, and for the next half hour or so he walked around Arcata with me, past the guys washing their cars, the gas stations, guest houses and the natural history museum, until something in someone's backyard proved too interesting, and we simply parted company.
Today on Roaring Beach, southern Tasmania, in the autumn sea mist, it was a golden dog - probably part retriever, but the rest of him was something far more rakish. He was a bundle of energy, chasing birds - a hopeless task - he'd come at them across 50 yards of open sand, but he wasn't really out to catch them. He'd race ahead of me, disappear over the dunes, re-materialise at my side five minutes later. It was all completely natural: he turned up and decided to share the afternoon's journey as if we were old friends. When I lay down on the beach for a rest, he flopped down against me and I used him for a pillow. He decided to return the gesture, and laid down at right-angles across my stomach. I couldn't be bothered shifting him. We watched the high spray hanging weightless in the white sunlight over the beach.
I'm not a very social person as a rule; I don't make human friends at the drop of a hat. Even if I were like that, how often would I make this sort of acquaintance? Twenty minutes before, we were total strangers, now we're flopped down resting together as if it was something we did every day. As if it were the most natural thing in the world. And it is. There's something old about this. Something hardwired in. Lying there with that strange but familiar dog curled against me, back to back, I had a flash of something ancient.
How long ago did you come out of the forest to be my companion? When did this start, Dog? Did the Wolf send you as a messenger? I've howled with him, and played with him, and looked into his eyes, and he seemed to know me.
Text 1998, photo 1997
Tim Gadd
I used that photo in the original On the Beach, but I don't have many shots of Roaring Beach...
