Okay, so it wasn’t exactly spring-break-style going wild, but the wieners (how can I say this) fully embraced nature on our recent trip to Lake Wateree. (I say Lake Wateree – but to the folks who have been frolicking up there for the last five or six decades or so, it is known more simply as “the river.”)
Anyway, it doesn’t take much to get our wiener dogs’ interest piqued for a trip. The mere touching of a leash and the emergence of their travel kennel from the garage provokes yelping and barking and running in circles the likes of which are an amazement to observe.
As soon as the kennel door opens, they run in and wait patiently to be transported to some far off land – this time the riverside cabin two hours away.
They ride patiently, never making a sound until we turn into the bumpy driveway to our destination. They know where they are from the feel of the road and the smell of the air. They start whimpering and whining until they are free from the box and ready for vacation. Vacation for them means enthusiastically sniffing scents they have never smelled before.
First morning I take them out for a walk. They tug on the leash – I might as well be lassoed to a wild horse – as these two 10-pound dogs pull me around the yard. Their sniffers are working it hard. They look as if their bodies are being dragged across the lawn by their noses.
I have to wonder, what are they smelling? From the intensity with which they are pursuing the new scent, they are on the track of something wild, I figure it could be a raccoon, or a snake, or another dog perhaps. They finally take a break from sniffing to do their business. I eventually drag them back to the house.
Later we decide to go fishing from the dock. I am prepared. I remembered the year before when I would leash them to the dock post because Sally has a habit of running away in search of heaven only knows what. I was prepared this time. I had packed the baby gates with me, the ones left over from our years of raising the man-children and trying to keep them corralled in a safe area. I set the gates up, pressed between two of the dock posts creating a nice big playpen for the dogs. I could fish and enjoy the afternoon and so could they.
But fishing from the dock seemed a little slow, so I decided to get in the water and wade out a ways from the dock. The dogs watched, curiously sniffing the air.
And that seemed to be going just fine until I heard a splash. In came the once lame, then operated on and rehabbed Sally. I made my way back over to her as she plowed through the water. Her nose held high as she sniffed something in the air and seemed more than a little bit determined to head across the lake. I eventually turned her body around but her head was still yearning for the other direction.
Day after day she jumped off the dock and headed for deep water. We couldn’t imagine what she was after, but it was a persistent dream.
Charlotte spent most of her vacation porch-sitting and watching a Carolina Wren build a nest under the house. The little bird would pick bits and pieces of sticks and straw from the yard and return them to her new home site under the edge of the house. It was like observing a dog watching a tennis match: Ears at attention, head swiveling back and forth, back and forth. And sniffing. Always sniffing.
And on the return home, as we released them from their kennel, they frolicked and were just as happy as they had been at the lake. (But the sniffing wasn’t half as good.)

Contact Judy Watts at 873-9424 or jwatts@journalscene.com