Jim Panttaja

I am generally pretty good with animals. Dogs will come up to me - cats that no one can pick up will crawl in my lap - in fact a baby horse once tried very hard to crawl in to my lap (I am told you aren’t supposed to sit down in a horse pasture with a mother and her baby - but I didn’t know that at the time).

We have spent much of the last three days in indian lands (Canyon De Chelly, Chinle, Arizona, Hubbell Trading Post). Some of the tour books had warned of the dogs running lose in campgrounds, and everywhere. These dogs don’t appear to have owners. They aren’t really a problem - they are generally behaved (I won’t go overboard and say well behaved).

Yesterday, as we visited the Hubbell Trading Post, one dog wandered up after his morning dip in the local creek. He looked scruffy - as only a wet dog can - and hadn’t actually notice us yet. I greeted him with my usual ‘hi puppy’. Intended as a term of endearment. I never knew a dog could deliver a dirty look - but that is what I got.

Last night, we camped in Grants, New Mexico. We got the site furthest from the office - with a great view of the thunder and lightning storm that moved through. But it was next to the ‘dog run’. I understood the Hubbell dog’s disgust with me - because we watched the parade of “puppies” - on their way to do their business. Owners in tow. “Puppies” that had probably never seen a creek.