Boon, my blue merle Australian Shepherd, has always been skillful at being sneaky. I remember one time I was hosting a New Year’s Eve party at my place. Everyone was spread around the dim-lit townhouse in small chatty circles eating and drinking while music played in the background. I was in the kitchen talking with some friends and holding a shortbread cookie with two fingers up in the air like a music conductor holding her baton; except I was swinging it at the rhythm of my trivial story instead and probably looked like a tipsy director. In the midst of my conversation I didn’t notice a dark shape had emerged from the shadows and managed to camp right next to me, camouflaged in the dimmed lights with two glossy eyes looking straight at me. It had been waiting patiently for the right moment to make its move.
The dark shape had been silently calculating all of my cookie swings with utmost determination. I paused my hand in midair for a short storytelling recess when suddenly my cookie disappeared; my fingers were empty. The dark shape had come forward. It was Boon, now out of the shadows and in the open, licking his lips after eating my delicious cookie. Boon had stolen it like a sophisticated thief retrieving it very delicately from my fingers with his front tiny teeth like a master pickpocket whom I would have never been able to detect. I wasn’t mad at all, just sincerely in awe by his sneaky abilities. Little did I know that this was just the beginning of many sneaky rebellions.
When we moved to our house in a beautiful rural area in west Michigan, we had a large lake-like pond in the backyard that had clear bluish water with many types of fish. We even had a sandy beach that we kept really well-groomed, and it made us feel like we were at a beach in the Caribbean—if only! Right? Oh well, it might not have been the Caribbean, but it was pretty close. With all the sea-like blue lakes in Michigan with their light sandy beaches, it was pretty close for a northern state. You just had to get past the cold water and substitute the palm trees with pine trees and you were in heaven.
It was in this clear-water pond that Boon first got acquainted with fish. Boon would sit on the clear and calm shore and observe how dozens of little fish would swim curiously around him. This was a catch and release pond, so I think the fish were seriously unaware of any threats coming from anyone, including dogs.
We probably spent hundreds of hours on that beach enjoying the summer, swimming with the dogs, paddle boarding, and sun bathing. When Boon wasn’t swimming, he would be sitting on the shore with half of his furry body drenched and flustered, with his eyes fixated on the swimming fish. Boon was trying to decide how he would catch them—but he never did. He just ended up with a wet and disappointed muzzle each time he tried. Catching a fish required advanced skills that he hadn’t acquired yet. This wasn’t just an airborne cookie, these were swimming fish—a superior challenge. Still, he tried obsessively.
Our backyard was beautiful. I could stare at it for hours and never get bored. We could easily spot hawks, owls, blue jays, and cardinals flying over the pond in any given day. Ducks would gather around in flocks paddling on the water and looking for a mate. There were so many different types of ducks that observing them with my binoculars was one of my favorite things to do. Rabbits would come out early in the morning and hop around to see if they could sneak inside my vegetable garden, but I kept it well protected. We even saw snakes and muskrats near the side of the shore that was covered in cattails.
All this beauty was surrounded by tall pine trees that gave away bursting sherbet sunsets reflected on the rippling water. We would contemplate this breathtaking display from the big window in our family room until the last pink-colored sunray would disappear behind the trees. There are some things in my life that I will never forget, and that view is one of them—Michigan’s sherbet skies over the pond, framed by our window, like a painting.
One morning, I was out in the backyard with both of my dogs, enjoying another morning in paradise, checking for any weeds that needed to be pulled out, making sure the beach was groomed, when all of a sudden, I spotted a big hawk on the community beach, about 100 feet away from where I was standing up on our little hill. It was a very large bird with very dark feathers all over his head and body and around its eyes making it look like El Zorro. Later I learned it was an osprey or “fish hawk” with a big white chest and neck and a dark beak. The osprey was stepping on a large fish that it had probably just caught and was getting ready to eat. I was in shock. I felt like I was watching a National Geographic documentary. I had never seen this moment in nature: a large fish trapped in a bird’s claws. As I was watching the hawk kill the fish, I suddenly saw that it opened its large dark wings in reaction to something near him. I was even more impressed at the wide wingspan I could now appreciate with total respect and apprehension. I wondered why the osprey was acting like it was being disturbed. That’s when I saw this dark shape approaching the fish and cautiously retrieving it from the hawk’s claws like a professional pickpocket. At first, I thought this was another animal added to the National Geographic scene, and I was almost excited to witness such an encounter. But when I took a closer look at this moving shadow, I saw that it was Boon sneaking in to steal the fish!
I guess if he couldn’t catch the fish in the water, he would try to steal one from a bird. “Is this really happening?!” I thought to myself. He had left my side while I was distracted observing the wild animal scene and decided to join the play Boon & The Fish, personifying the thief character—a role he was most certainly prepared to play. My heart stopped. I just couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The bird was as big as Boon, and Boon is a big dog! It could kill Boon or hurt him with its beak! Especially if Boon was stealing its food! I didn’t know what to do. The first thing that came out of my mouth were ridiculous and high-pitched screams, nervous shrieks that called out Boon’s name and echoed across the pond, through the tall pine trees, and up to the cloudy skies and asked him to COME.HERE.RIGHT.NOW!
In the midst of this upheaval, the osprey flew away. I’m not sure if it was intimidated by the fish thief’s talents or by my annoying screams. Either way, Boon was back by my side, without the fish, thank goodness, but feeling elated like he had a newfound sense of bravery and willful adventure. Meanwhile, I was feeling guilty for the hawk whose breakfast was ruined. I waited to see if the bird would come back to grab its meal, but it didn’t. I kept waiting and thinking the fish was dead, but all of a sudden, I could see the big fish flipping over on the sandy beach. It was alive! The fish was trying to move closer to the water to save its own life—an unbearable thing to watch.
My conservationist instincts got ahold of me at the scene of the dying fish, and I thought the best thing I could do was to save it. But it was a big fish, one of those that have never been caught and just kept growing, so I actually needed a shovel if I wanted to do the job right.
I ran back to the house, let the dogs in, quickly grabbed a shovel and then ran back out to the National Geographic scene through the cattails and snakes and who-knows-what-else-there-was along the 100 feet trail—I ran blindly. The fish was miraculously still alive with only a few bloody scratches. I immediately scooped the fat fish with my heavy shovel and threw it back into the water. The fish immediately swam and disappeared down to the bottom of the pond. Now it was I who felt elated with a newfound sense of bravery and willful adventure.
Back in the house, Boon still had a proud upright chest full of conquest and irreverence. How dare he left my side!? The thing I couldn’t understand was how he knew I was looking at the hawk on the other side of the beach. From where we were standing on the hill of our house, it was impossible for him to see the hawk down on the community beach. There were too many cattails covering the view. I sometimes wonder if he is so obsessed with figuring out whatever it is that I’m doing that he thought to follow my eyes. It must have been that or he just wanted to make sure nothing steals my attention away from him—not the cookie, not the hawk. Either way, he certainly figured out how to catch a fish!
The osprey did not forget the incident. We were back outside trying to enjoy the rest of our day, and it was flying aggressively over the house and even dipping down over my head! This went on for hours, so I brought the dogs inside and stared worriedly at the angry hawk through the family room window. Poor osprey, I guess I shouldn’t have intervened with nature. Lesson learned. But I’m not sure if Boon learned any lesson, though. I think he would still leave my side again to go steal a fish or even better, a cookie, and keep growing his list of sneaky rebellions.
I am now cautious with any type of food I’m holding in my fingers or any type of object that has gotten all of my attention that is accessible to Boon, the sneaky dog, because he will figure out a way to steal it—my laptop, my pen, my cell phone, my books—just to get my attention and sweep me off my feet with his clever love and inventiveness.