EP.22 - Raiders Of The Lost... Art!!!

When I was a little pup, my meals came straight from my furry mum, it was the tastiest thing ever... that is, until I discovered beef, pork and chicken, but I am running ahead of my tail here… When I got a little older my furry mum’s human introduced us pups to a kill called kibbles.

I took quite well to this new form of nourishment, but it always left me a little… unsatisfied, not hungry but as if it wasn’t fulfilling all the requirements my developing little body needed.

When I finally went to live with my own hooman, she slowly changed my usual kibble to one that she called “a good quality kibble”

This one tasted much better, but it still left me with the same unsatisfactory feeling, this too wasn't… quite right!

Skipping forward, to the time after my tick bite illness and subsequent recovery, something changed in my hooman, she kept barking to her mate about finding a better kill, she was totally convinced that if we were on better food when the…

What did she call it? Oh yes… the revolting six legged vampires got me, I would have been better equipped to fight the illness they passed on to me.

This howling went on for quite some time, but I didn’t understand… after all I had been on kibbles since leaving my furry mum’s teat, therefore I knew nothing else, except the occasional treat from my hooman’s own kill, which tasted nice, but sometimes made my belly area go brr, grr... and then pop with a sort of squeaky sound... it made me feel like I had a family of squirrels nesting in my stomach.

“I will find us different food, no more kibble… you mark my word”, was the last thing my hooman

said to her mate when he pointed out to her that all the kibbles on offer were pretty much the same, safe for their price.

Hearing my hooman talking about no more kibble surprised me… was there something other than kibble?

My hooman was on a mission, she was looking for something, I could sense her agitation, I needed to do something about it… so I decided to help!

The next couple of weeks, every time we went for our walkies, I was on high alert. I sniffed every single bit of dog’s waste I came across to see if I could pick up the scent of the allusive new kill, if I happened to detect the smallest residue of the unknown substance, it could put me on the right path to further investigate by identify the culprit and question him/her about their food habits... but sadly, all I picked up was the scent of… many kinds of regular kibble!

“What on earth are you looking for?” came a feeble voice from behind a tree.

I turned and was met with what must have positively been the oldest dog I had seen in my life, so much so, I found myself wondering how it could even have made it to the park for walkies.

“I am helping my hooman” I answered.

“Wait, you are helping your human by sniffing dog’s poop ? How is that helping your human?”

“I am trying to smell if an alternative to dry kill exists”

“An alternative to dry kill?” She repeated.

I was beginning to regret getting into woofle with this old dog,

I had a mission and I needed to get on with it.

“Yes… dry kibble”, I answered and went back to my olfactory pursuit as a way to show her that time was treats!

“Oh I see…” she said, at the same time I tried to, as polite as possible, to turned away seeking the next scent hovering in the air.

“… I know exactly what you are talking about”

This woofle caught my attention…

“You do?” I asked her, walking closer and sitting down ready to be enlightened by her wisdom.

She also came a little closer, an action that took a while, but between you and me, if you could have seen how old she was, you would also have been surprised that she managed it at all.

Anyway, she sat down next to me… this last movement seemed to cause her some sort of discomfort, but eventually she found a comfortable position.

Her body sorted, now she seemed to be sorting her mind, she just sat there pensively.

I decided to keep quite and wait for her to sort out the flees from the bees…

Eventually she seemed to have ordered her thought sufficiently to begin revealing the mystery.

She made a little growl and said “Yes… The alternative you seek does exist… but…”

And there she stopped, dropping her head slightly, closing her eyes.

Did she fall asleep? Unsure on what to do, I slowly moved closer and sniffed her head, I was about to gently paw her when she suddenly came back to life and scared me half to death.

“… but… it has been lost in time… modern humans spend their time running around doing things to “buy”stuff, including ready made kill, rather than having something to do with it themselves, so the alternative I am talking about is a lost art, and near impossible to discover”

“Really?” I asked with a mixture of surprise and apprehension, realizing that it was true, I never seen my hooman go for a kill, it always came out of the… “box”.

“… Because”, The old dame continued, “… the journey to find the proper kill is full of human obstacles”

“I’ll go instead!!!”

“You can’t, it is a place only humans can access, and the journey differs from human to human, there is no direction to be given, no map that can be followed. Sometimes, if the human has awaken a little and has developed a sort of doglike traits, guidance can be given, but even then... most fail, because this is a journey which destinations is the quest itself”

She said what??? Now i was totally confused....