As I do many afternoons or early evening, I took the dogs for a walk around the neighborhood today, and like many days, ran into one of the neighbors out with their dogs, someone new, who I hadn’t met before. I reflected on how different life is in a small, rural town vs. cities or suburbs. Never did I feel more isolated from my neighbors than when I was living in a large apartment building in San Francisco. And never I have felt more connected and friendly with my neighbors than living off a dirt road in Nederland, Colorado. Meeting someone through a walk with the dogs is a common occurrence around here, as we live off a dirt road, that is private, and so most of our neighbors will walk in the morning or any time of day down the middle of the road with man’s best friend or friends.
In the five years we’ve lived here, this is pretty much how I’ve gotten to know most of the neighbors, not so much through them, but through their dogs. Somehow, the dogs provide an automatic invitation to conversation, and somebody out walking the neighborhood roads with a dog or two is automatically deemed friendly or trustworthy. I will admit that when I see a person walking by themselves (sans dog), I view them with a bit more trepidation or attribute some creepiness to them. Unfair? Probably, but true. It reminds me of something my mother told me when I was quite young, “Never trust anyone who doesn’t like dogs.” We have some neighbors who moved in next door to us that don’t have dogs, and don’t seem to like them very much, which is a rarity here. We’ve never quite recovered from our first inauspicious meeting that involved my dog, Shawnee. Like most days, I was walking with the dogs, off leash on the dirt road in front of our house coming back from our hour long walk, and suddenly Shawnee took off into their yard. This happens frequently around here, and there are many days when dogs are on our front porch, deck, or someone on our property, which I think nothing of. But the woman started shrieking, and then I realized that Shawnee had treed her cat. Apparently, these folks had moved from the city with their “outdoor cat.” (In my mind, I thought outdoor cat ha! not for long, just wait until Mr. Coyote comes….). I gathered Shawnee up, grumbled a quick “I’m sorry” and pulled her home. Two years later, and we are still not on good terms with our neighbors, mainly because of the dog situation.
The funny thing about meeting people this way is that frequently we introduce our dogs to each other before ourselves. “Hi, this is Simon and Shawnee….” Then, only as an after thought, do I think to introduce myself as well. Maybe because of this, I seem to know all the dogs in the neighborhood, and remember their names instantly, but it takes me several tries to remember their master’s name. I was also thinking how unique this is to small mountain towns. Dogs in Colorado are everywhere, particularly in the mountains, so much so, that dogs from overflowing shelters in other states are often brought here to be adopted. Our dog, Shawnee, a border collie/Australian shepherd mix was born in Texas and was going to be euthanized in a shelter there. At three months old, she was rescued by a good Samaritan and flown to a shelter here in Colorado, where we adopted her.
In Nederland, as in so many other towns in Colorado, life very frequently is going to the dogs.
