The last time I was in the woods walking with Fate and Zinnia there was still snow on the ground.
On the other side of the stream that runs through the back pasture, there is a path that leads to a cornfield. On our neighbors property there is a bridge to the path used mostly by snow mobiles and animals.
We were on our way back to the farm when Fate crossed the bridge and began walking along the stream across from Zinnia and me.
After a bit Fate looked up and decided to join us. Which meant crossing the stream.
Unlike Zinnia who will plow through any body of water in any temperature, Fate doesn’t like to get her feet wet when it’s cold out. I thought she would just go back to the bridge, but then I saw she was deciding what to do.
Jon often talks about how dogs don’t get to make decisions anymore. I know I’m often telling the dogs what to do and I expect them to listen to me (not that they always do). But it’s different when we walk in the woods. There, the three of us are each doing our own thing, never straying too far from each other, but also preoccupied with what interests us.
In the past I would have walked back to the bridge, Fate following on the other side of the stream, so she could cross it. But instead, I decided to watch her and see what she would do.
That’s how I got to witness her making a decision about where and how to cross the stream.
First Fate paced back and forth along the bank of the stream. I could see she had already decided not to go back to the bridge.
She stopped at one point where the water was low and the stream narrow. But it was still too wide for her to jump across.
Then she went down stream a bit further and came to a place where ice had formed along the bank. She looked as if she might try jumping across it, I could see it in her posture. But I knew the ice might not hold her (the stream is shallow at this point so there was no danger if she did break through the ice). She seemed to have understood that too. Maybe when she stepped on the ice on her side of the stream it gave a bit under the foot.
Back and forth she went, pacing the stream again until she came back to the place where the water was lowest, the tops of the rocks above the water.
And as much as she would rather not walk thought the stream, I watched as she gingerly placed one foot in front of the other, each step close to a rock, until she was on the other side.
It was much more interesting to watch Fate figure out where to cross the stream than to have led her back to the bridge.
The whole thing is making me rethink how much attention I pay to Fate in places like the barnyard or back yard. The places where she is the most hyper. I think what I need to do, is watch more and say less.
I know the sheep and donkeys react to my being calm by being calm themselves. So of course it would be the same with Fate.
I’ve already started ignoring her when I’m mucking out the barn and she’s hopping in front of me trying to get my attention. For the past few day’s I’ve not said a word until I’m done, then I stand by the sheep and give the command to ‘get the sheep’. She runs and runs, and so far, she not only stops when I tell her, but she comes out of the barn yard when I call her.
That’s new. I hope I can keep it up.
