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New Year's TravellogueJanuary 07, 2009 The ice on the trails and dirt roads lately has been treacherous for walking, but this morning was the pits: overnight rain and a drop in temperature left my deck and outside stairs coated with clear ice, and the ground below was no better. Around 7 a.m. Trav and I headed out for our morning walk. Our usual short route, a circuit on dirt roads and trails around the back of the West Tisbury School, was just about unwalkable. Instead of staying on the roads we tramped through the woods, where the remaining snow crunched underfoot. The brambles and undergrowth slowed me down, though, so much that Travvy wasn't getting any real exercise, so I let him off-leash. He's pretty good about coming home, and when he dilly-dallies he can nearly always be found at T-beaux's house, and if not there, then he's probably rooting around the old camp behind the school where there's all sorts of promising stuff strewn about: gas cans, food wrappers, sponges, tools, a rolled-up sail . . . Not this time. I checked out the likely places, passing by the house to see if he'd come home, calling "Where's Travvy? Travvy, come!" No puppy. I returned to the apartment. The phone's message light was blinking. Why did I assume that it had to do with the dog? It was Joanie Jenkinson, animal control officer for West Tisbury, reporting that she'd had a call from Lorna Jean Myers: Trav had showed up on her porch, her kids had let him in, and now he didn't want to leave. I called the number that Joanie left. The whole scenario fell into place: the Myers house is just up the dirt road behind where I live; we walk by it all the time, and more than once when off-leash Trav has gone to check out their porch. I slip-slid my way over, leash in hand. The Myers porch was as slick as my stairs. We all introduced ourselves -- amazing how many conversations you can have with people before you know their last names, and how you don't notice the lack till you have to look them up in the phone book. It's Travvy's gregariousness that has introduced me to most of the neighbors. Over the months he's invited himself in to the Baileys', the Segals', and now the Myers's houses. Last summer he crashed a pool party at the Baxters'. I met Porter because he was often driving out the back way in the early morning when Trav and I were walking. It was Rhodry who introduced me to Mrs. Moody, who lives off the Doctor Fisher road: summer before last she stopped to ask about my handsome companion. Ever since we've been waving to each other on the road and saying hi at the post office. Dogs get people talking to each other. This past weekend Trav scored his third rubber glove. This one was under the sink at Cris's house; the sink is against a cold wall, so the cupboard doors stay open to allow warm inside air to get at the pipes. I'd rescued this particular glove from the Jaws of Traveller on more than one occasion, but Trav is nothing is not persistent, and he's long since figured out that when I'm staring at a computer screen I'm not paying much attention to him. Trav's first two rubber gloves were yellow. This one had a blue hand and a yellow cuff. He only ate the cuff. Go figure. Like its predecessors, it passed successfully through the malamute digestive system and within 24 hours emerged again into the light of day. Trav also knows that when I'm driving I'm not paying much attention to him, which is how he came to eat an ounce of so of Hungarian paprika and most of the zip-lock baggie that contained it. My grocery bag was in the back of the cab. So was Trav. Need I say more? The paprika made him thirsty. It also stained his right front paw a garish red. If henna isn't dramatic enough for you, you might try using paprika instead.
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