Some folks are amazed that dinosaurs existed at all. Some say they never did. I am sometimes surprised not that dinosaurs are extinct, which implies that they once were alive, but that any of us currently walking, flying or crawling around on this whirling blob ever lasted long enough to leave evidence.
When I take my canine companion out for one of his wanders, he starts with a memorized pattern of inventory-taking, beginning under our barn. It is a small building and has provided natal-chambers to, by turns, feral cats, opossums, raccoons, lots of wood mice, and currently a woodchuck who may, or may not, be preparing a boudoir for a hoped-for mate.
Then I follow along while the pup leads me through the Couple Acre Wood, hoovering up particles left behind whitetail deer, rabbits, an occasional turkey and other critters whose spoor I can see. I do not know how he keeps them organized. He likes nothing better than to attach his nose to various trails that might lead to a new playmate. Unfortunately for him, most of his would-be quarries do not hang around long enough learn that Bowie only wants to play.
An exception to the escaping quarry problem are the Patent Leather beetles that make their abode in some of the decomposing logs. I don’t know whether Bowie can smell them or hear them – probably both; I’ve read the beetles sing while they work.
I watched him last night start digging at a particular spot on a particular log. He takes digging seriously, whether in the ground in pursuit of wood mice or in this case, in pursuit of a bug in a log. He clawed into the decomposing wood to remove as much dust and rot as he could, then hooked his jaws into chunks and ripped them away. Then back to clawing …
until finally he seemed to pick up something and toss it to the side, then move to it, mouth it some and toss it again, the way he plays with the miniature dog bone treats I give him as reward. Each time the beetle tried to run away, the dog grabbed it, but never hurt it.
I am not a fan of catch-and-release fishing. Either eat the quarry or leave it alone. I called Bowie and we left the scene.
People keep telling me the fact that my brain is larger than his means I am better than he. I do not accept that, partly because I watched him one night follow the trail left behind another beetle.
He had dug the beetle out of a different rotting log, and started to play with it when I called him away to another area. When we returned, he went exactly to the spot he had left the insect, then followed a trail a few feet to the critter, and restarted playing with it. My over-huge brain could not have done any of that.
What is amazing is that there is any of us at all to trail, that in our travels we do not at some point run out of anything more to leave behind for Bowie to detect. But then even he would be disappeared, unexisted, washed away on the invisible currents in which he would not poke his olfactory sensors to learn the recent history of being.
Around us, even in the dark of night, the forest is alive and wide awake, alert to the makers of those trails that prove our, my, existence, trails I can see only by watching the dog taste and measure his find. We humans place ourselves atop the peak of intelligence because we have named the beetle.
I wonder what label Bowie attaches to the source of the trail he has followed as it, to the dog’s sensors, loudly chewed its way through that log.
Text and Images ©2025 John Messeder. John is an award-winning environmental storyteller, nemophilist and social anthropologist living in Gettysburg, PA. He may be contacted at john@johnmesseder.com