Marker Dogs

In the course of my house sitting, I walk many different kinds of dogs. Boy dogs, girl dogs, big ones, small ones. It’s the boys that "mark" of course. Girls tend to just pee when they need, usually in the a.m. and nighttime. I have had one or two exceptions. Buffalo Jill, a large female Akita, would frequently sniff, scratch and pee along the arroyo path where we walked. Her housemate Buddy would then rush to discover the spot and of course lift his leg in the same place. She was obviously the leader.

An exception among the boys was Shadow. I’ve spoken of Shadow before and he is one of my favorite dogs for many reasons. Shadow is a black lab mix about 2 years old. He pees like a stallion and walks without sniffing or stopping for anything other than an occasional dump. When he pees (usually in the a.m. and at night) he stands with head and haunches stretched, nose pointing to the sky and relieves himself in copious amounts.
Among the natural markers, the boys, I’ve found variations as distinct as the dogs. This week, I’ve been with Friday, a lovely brown and white rat terrier. He is a marker dog par excellance! He stops. Sniffs positions. Resniffs, repositions, and finally (depending on how far into our walk we are) he lifts his leg as high as possible without falling over and then he drips a drop or two confident that he has left his mark for all to smell. Such bravado for such a small dog.
These marker dogs are often a frustration to me. I want to honor their natural needs of course. I also want them and myself to get exercise and with so many stops, I often feel I’ve lost the momentum needed to burn those hot chocolate calories.
The marker dogs are similar to, but separate from the "sniffer" dogs. Sniffer dogs smell and sniff each rock, bush, hydrant, and pole that the marker dogs mark. But, instead of marking, they seem to be content to imagine the previous visitor and you can almost see them imagining the dog or person, rat, bird, whatever had been in this spot before. Flora is such a sniffer dog. A female, she tends not to mark, but sniffs so many things she seems to know the story of what and who passed by just by the smell.

Would that we could do the same!