MVP Performance

Pretty much every Sunday morning I lift my little ride-along beagle into the shotgun seat of my Jeep Wrangler, where he nestles up into a cozy little furball, and I get the pleasure of stroking him as we drive blissfully up Bayberry. We make a right on Lyons Plains Road, pass the red barn on the right, and continue to wend our way along the curves of Valley Forge Road until we get to the most perfect, woodsy dog-hiking trails in the county. (I don’t want to give away the identity of this Shangri-La and have the place overrun by every dog-owner from Westport and Weston and Easton, so let’s just say the name of the preserve rhymes with “Snout Hook.”)

I let Ricky out of the Jeep. We see moms and dads and kids and young couples and Labs and Goldens and Shepherds and Bernese Mountain dogs, all of them — two-legged and four-legged creatures alike — joyful and frolicky and glad to be out on a gorgeous day. I attach Ricky’s leash and lead him to the trailhead. And he starts sniffing. I give the leash a little tug, but he keeps on sniffing in exactly the same spot. I pull a little harder, to kind of gently coax him along, but he slams on the brakes. I give another, somewhat harder “suggestive” tug, and he makes a quick 180, digs in, and stares longingly back at the Jeep.

After about a half-hour of this type of “walking,” I let him off leash. I get him to make occasional, halting progress — only, of course, with the constant use of Crunchy Treats as bribes. The loop we generally take is about two-and-a-half miles. By the end of it, I’m sweaty, aggravated, and muttering to myself — and to Ricky! — “Why can’t I have a normal dog?!” That high-on-life mood I was in driving over? Hah! Gone.

So one Sunday last month I decided to shake things up just a little. We still went to Snout Hook, but we took a red (“hard”) trail instead of a green (“easy”) one. Lots of steep ascents. Lots of scrambling over rocks. Hand-over-hand climbing. Navigating narrow ridges with scary drops on either side. Negotiating rickety wooden foot-bridges over rushing streams. Since I really needed to focus on my own progress, I couldn’t constantly worry about pulling along a balky little beagle.

But — amazingly! — I didn’t have to. Ricky scrambled, too. He found a way to scale boulders five times his height. He had no trouble with the tricky ridges or the skinny bridges. Sometimes he was a little behind me, more often out in front — but always looking back, checking up on how I was doing. From time to time he’d wander off-trail, but all it took was a soft, “No Ricky, it’s this way” — and he was right back with the program.

His behavior was totally un-Ricky-like. He was resolute and resourceful. The walk was a challenging one and clearly, he rose to the occasion. I couldn’t have been more proud of him if he’d won a blue ribbon at Westminster. The trail is definitely one we’ll be repeating.

According to his papers, Ricky’s a purebred beagle. But I’m wondering if there’s not a little mountain goat in him . . .