Get Off Your Land

Asshole season and also: A Bonus Tale About A Toothbrush

Most days, I take Ruthie to some forest area to walk. It’s not far from my house, which is “in town.” But I have to drive her there because she freaks out and tries to take off when I try to walk her like a normal dog, like on a walk down a street with cars and people on it.

Ruthie needs to be in silence to relax. She is a special dog. When she gets really scared her back right leg juts out and the left one shakes. A friend of mine once captured a photo of her legs doing this. You can sense the quiver in them. I always tell my friend he should quit his job to be a pet photographer, and he always says ‘Ok!”

Last Friday Ruthie and I arrived at the little forest area around 5 p.m. I’d had a very long day involving lots of writing. I just wanted some quiet time with my little girl and I think she was ready for some R&R herself.

Usually when Ruthie and I first arrive I look around to make sure no dogs are present and then I let her off leash so she can run into the woods on her own for a minute or two. Then she comes back and walks next to me and if I see a dog coming I leash her up. She is weird with dogs because she wants to herd them. She’s less afraid of people in the woods because she has her space.

We had barely parked and stepped onto the trail when I heard a rumbling sound. A light blue sort of dune buggy/ATV was flying towards us. I had never seen a vehicle on this path, which is wide enough for a car, but not paved, in my life.

Ruthie looked at me like “god help us, especially Ruthie” and hoofed it into the woods. Before it reached me, the vehicle made a left. I increased my pace, following it, super pissed.

A man and woman in their 70s or 80s and their leashed-up, mild-mannered Australian Shepherd who Ruthie likes to lunge at on occasion, causing me great embarrassment, were standing right on the other side of the turn. “I’ve never seen a car here as long as I have been coming here, ten years or more,” said the man. The vehicle was out of sight already, but you could still hear it.

“I didn’t know you were allowed to have motorized stuff here,” said the woman. She had a walker.

“You’re not,” said the man. “I’m sure you’re not.”

Ruthie was bounding toward me now, leaping athletically over the moutain misery and the logs that fell during one of the 6000 storms we just had, which, the other day, I told a friend were like the earth shaking us off of it. She said I needed to change my relationship to time. I said I would try.

“What a beautiful dog,” the woman with the walker said. “Like a fox.”

The man agreed. “Gorgeous,” he said. “Very fox-like.”

I made Ruthie come to me and leashed her up so as to keep her from terrifying the sweet Aussie.

You could still hear the stupid vehicle. Its engine made popping noises as it sped downhill, toward the creek. The man and the woman and I all bounced our rage off each other for a minute or two and then they headed back to the parking area and I continued on my walk.