On The Scent

Barley, a dog, walks with her head held close to the ground amid a light smattering of fallen leaves, sniffing as she goes.

While I would think of it all as “walking the dog,” Barley’s “walking” mode is very different from her “tracking” mode. The latter requires a lot more vigilance on my part, partly because it’s much more start-and-stop (and so much harder to match pace with), but also because at any moment it might culminate in Barley deciding to take a nibble of something she oughtn’t. We’re much more likely to travel in this mode when we’re off the beaten path, but being on concrete is no guarantee that Barley won’t catch a scent and lurch off tangent to our heading with her nose hovercrafting just above the terrain’s surface.