More W. Bruce Cameron
This is the
second column in a thought-provoking
series about how my dog and I are dumber
than a squirrel.
Last week, I explained that despite
the fact that I had poured (plainly
labeled) bird
seed into a (universally recognizable)
bird feeder in
order to feed (well, duh)
birds, a lawless squirrel
had invaded. This so intimidated the
local birds that they weren't landing in
the feeder, though I suppose they might
also have been put off by the way my dog
and I kept noisily charging out the door
to curse at the squirrel.
In the face of this injustice, I felt
I had no choice but to deploy advanced
human weaponry, using my son's squirt
gun to hose down the squirrel and send
it scampering. I settled into a chair on
the porch, water gun in my lap, a study
in vigilance.
And then I got hit with a pinecone.
That's right, a pinecone smacked me
on the crown of my head. I thought the
tree itself had just dealt an improbable
blow — pinecones do fall of their own
accord, after all. But when the second
one stung my scalp, I looked up and
there was the squirrel, eyes glinting,
hauling himself up the evolutionary
ladder from nut-gatherer to
projectile-thrower in one afternoon.
Here's something they should teach
you in Special Forces: If you fire a
squirt gun straight up at a squirrel who
is trying to concuss you, most of the
water will cascade back on your face.
The squirrel nearly fell out of the
tree, it was laughing so hard. I stomped
into the house, yelling at my dog, who
despite the battle raging in the front
yard was napping in the living room. He
seemed offended to be so rudely
awakened, but that's what happens in the
military: You always pick on someone of
lower rank.
"Go out there, and scare the squirrel
away!" I instructed. He raced outside,
his fur an angry ridge on his back, but
apparently thought my orders had been,
"Go to the garage, knock over the
trashcan, and eat something from it."
Then I was struck with a brilliant
thought: Hey, I was at least as advanced
a creature as my rodent adversary, even
if it was some sort of ninja squirrel.
I went out
into the yard and looked up at my enemy,
who was now on the flat part of my roof,
watching coldly. I picked up a pinecone
and tossed it at the squirrel, who
immediately withdrew.
"He didn't know I could throw
back," I explained
to the dog, who gazed at me worshipfully
— my pet might not be good at executing
orders, but he was great at sucking up
to the boss.
Then the squirrel reappeared at the
edge of the roof, the pinecone in its
jaws. With a flick of its head, it
pitched the pinecone back down at me. My
dog snapped into retriever mode,
pouncing on the pinecone, racing over to
me and dropping it at my feet.
"You have got to be kidding me," I
said to the squirrel.
I took aim and fired another shot,
though I have to say that as weapons go,
pinecones lack a certain ferocity, even
though they do sting when they crack you
on the head. "You are so lucky I don't
have a hand grenade," I told the
squirrel, which was probably true for
me, as well.
I tried over and over to hit my
target, always missing, and every time
it would disappear for a moment,
bringing back the pinecone and pitching
it down to my dog.
And then it struck me how
extraordinary this inter-species game of
catch and fetch truly was, and how I had
gotten caught up in trying to toss the
pinecone softly and accurately enough
for the squirrel to snare it mid-air, as
it had learned to do for the dog. Truth
be told, I sort of liked
the little critter, now. The three
of us were having fun together.
A few days later, when I picked up
more birdfeed, I also bought some
peanuts for the squirrel.
What the heck — we were on the same
team.
"