The Road Less Travelled

Barley, a dog, walks ahead on a secluded bath around behind the back of a brick building.

When the opportunity presents itself, I like to give Barley the chance to really run across large expanses of grass. This happens a lot less than I’d like. First, I do not trust her off-leash unless I’m inside a fenced perimeter. Second, and more perniciously, is Canadian geese. Barley must not be allowed near a patch of grass they have contaminated, or else she will be unable to resist the siren’s scent of their waste. Since Canadian geese are only facultative migrators, they only go as far south as they need to keep ahead of sub-freezing temperatures, and it seems this area’s going to remain overrun with them for the foreseeable future. So, I’ve had to diversify where I walk Barley, which has taken us to some of the neighborhood’s more remote corners.