August 24, 2020
The dog detective used to be a staple of kids’ TV programs. Usually, it was a photogenic German shepherd, or maybe a collie, that sniffed out the truth of a mystery, woofing the results of its investigations in the last two minutes, then enjoying well-deserved pats from its appreciative owners as the credits rolled.
Victoria isn’t in quite that investigative category, but she’s always been a good security guard. In my early times here, she used to spend her days in the corral here with two other dogs, both now departed, then I’d bring her into my small house for the night. She’d always check around, and if I saw her staring at the wall, it meant she’d detected an intrusive scorpion. I considered it her way of showing appreciation for the dry accommodation, even if I never had that many scorpions coming in.
Vicki staring at … something or other.
She’s a little arthritic and slow these days, and recently had to have a few bad teeth extracted under anesthetic. She still has keen hearing, however and, I realised this week, a reliable sense of smell.
I don’t own a car, but my friend Lucero is living elsewhere for a time, and has left her old Ford Explorer for me to use. The emphasis here is on the word ‘old,’ since it’s a model year 1993, and shows, shall we say, a few signs of its age. However, the motor is still sound, and since I don’t want to ride on public transportation right now, it’s a useful alternative.
The Ford Explorer, showing just a few signs of its age.
I take Vicki out twice a day, essentially for mental stimulus, since the arthritis means she’s not into long walks, or running about in the field outside my home. She sniffs what she considers needs to be sniffed, then begins hinting she wants to go back.
Recently, she began stopping on the way back in to sniff a back wheel of the Ford. I assumed another dog had peed against I when it was out, and I couldn’t understand her determined fascination with it.
Saturday, I went shopping with a friend into town, and noticed coming back that the brakes were very soft and slow to react. We’d planned to go to a village with interesting trails for an afternoon hike, but my friend was nervous about that. The drive would have been entirely uphill and, more critical, the drive back is non-stop downhill. For four kilometres or more. With iffy brakes. We watched a movie at her place instead.
I took the car in for servicing today, having found an honest and reliable mechanic in July. Since I’ve mostly driven front-wheel drive cars, it never occurred to me that the main braking system for the rear-wheel drive Explorer was at the back (duh), but right away the mechanic showed me the dripping brake fluid that Vicki had been sniffing.
It wasn’t expensive to put in a new brake cylinder, and a couple of hours later the Explorer was fine again; or at least, as fine as an aging, 27-year-old SUV is going to be. But heading back home from the mechanic’s, it occurred to me Vicki had been my early warning system for the pungent (to a dog) brake fluid, and that she only gets obsessive about dangerous things.
Okay kid, there’s some chicken for your dinner tonight. You tried to help, even if I was too slow to pick up on the hint you were providing.
The noble canine detective tradition lives on!
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