My dog Bodie spent the salmon season at the beach site on the Kenai Peninsula while I fished the tides. He had free reign to roam the bluffs and the beach, which suited him fine — until his habits caught up with him
The Ritual
Bodie’s favorite cologne was dead, rotting fish. Fishermen would let their bycatch flounder flop around on the deck and then shovel them out once they hit the beach. In his wanderings Bodie would find mounds of rotten fish and go to town.
It’s an odd behavior, and it happens like the sprouting of mushrooms after rain. One second it’s not there, the next it is, and you rarely see the transformation. I could take my eyes off him for an instant and he’d reappear coated in fish guts, sand, and scales.
It wasn’t until three years later, on a farm in Virginia, that I actually witnessed the ritual. I was on my front porch and spotted Bodie two hundred yards away, nose to the ground near a fresh pile of cow dung. He slowly leaned down, lowering his shoulder, letting his front legs buckle underneath. His movement had an element of the sublime, as if he was relishing the anticipation. He fell forward into the pile, took a turn to the side, and flailed his legs in the air. Then flipped back to his feet for another go.
I ran and screamed and waved my arms. He looked at me and dropped back into the cow pie. He probably thought I was running over to get in on the action.
To see him strutting around afterward with rancid filth matted in his fur, you’d think he was a new heavyweight champion parading his belt.
The Cliff
One evening we were walking along the bluff in waist-high grass, following paths trampled by moose. Bodie was certain that because the grass rose six inches above his head, I couldn’t see him. This was very exciting. He tore up the path ahead and ran back, following what to him was a little grass tunnel.
The bluffs are practically pure sand and erode in storms. Places where the path once led to the edge now have gaps where large chunks have fallen to the beach below. From my height I could see these dead ends. Bodie could not.
He ran directly at me, juked hard to the right, and ran clean off the edge of the cliff.
I was at once amused by such a dopey thing to do and terrified of what I’d find when I looked over the edge. I ran to the spot and found that section of cliff was eroding from an underground stream, creating a big slurry pool of muck that Bodie had landed in. He was still standing in it, legs sunk to his belly, looking utterly bewildered.
Aside from his pride, he was unharmed.
The Moose
One morning I had an early call for the morning tide. I was disgruntled when Bodie unleashed a peal of high-volume barking, jarring me from deep pre-dawn sleep. I wrestled with him to quiet him down, but he was winning.
Fine. Your ass can spend the rest of the morning outside with the chipmunk that has so aroused you, dumb mutt.
I reached up to unzip the tent door and inadvertently grabbed the tab for the window zipper instead — a groggy little mishap that may well have saved his life. I flipped the window open and Bodie darted for the door, thinking I’d unzipped an exit. He hit the screen and fell back inside the tent.
I looked out to see a bull moose twelve feet from the door. Nose to the ground. Staring right at us.
I put Bodie in a headlock and gripped my hand around his snout with everything I had. Probably harder than I needed to. He whimpered and I let up. He knew something was wrong and froze.
Then began the stare-down that lasted the longest ten seconds of my life.
Moose are stompers. If this guy — standing an easy seven feet tall — wanted to have a go at us, we’d be easy pickings. He’d simply charge over and stamp up and down on us with his front hooves like the old geezer stamping out the flaming bag of shit left on his doorstep by the neighborhood kids.
He looked at me. I looked at him, holding my dog and my bladder with everything I had.
And then he walked away.
The whole affair lasted less than twenty-five seconds. But it was a hell of a way to start the day.
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