The Dogs of Spring

There was a day this week that was bright and shiny.
The sun was out, the ice was melting, and my dog Drago and I had no choice — if we mean to be present at all for the good things in our life — but to take to the streets for a walk. At every turn, we heard the gurgle of water chasing the path of least resistance toward the sea. Neighbors too were outside, working their way through forgotten chores long buried beneath snow. A collective sigh of remembrance was palpable as we recalled the warmth of bygone springs, and looked forward to the expansive hours of outdoor splendor that lie ahead.

We took deep, full breaths.

We skipped along, searching in earnest for the tiny tips of exuberant daffodils. But the next day, I had to don my layers again and brace myself for the shock of cold air as Drago and I handled our morning chores. The chickens in my yard were disappointed as well, having enjoyed two full days of luxuriating in the sun and rolling in the dirt. On this day there was no dirt — only crunchy, cracking, iced-over mud again.

It must be spring. A time of transitions. A time that is between other times. It reminds me of the liminal place that dogs occupy in our stories.

In ancient Greece, Hecate — goddess of magic, crossroads, and the in-between — was perpetually accompanied by dogs. She roamed at night where three roads met, those liminal points where the Greeks believed the membrane between worlds grew thin enough to slip through. Her hounds were said to be heard before she was seen, their howling rising at boundaries that human senses could not perceive. Offerings of food were left at crossroads to appease her — and always, her dogs were there too, eating from the edges, belonging neither to the domestic world of the hearth nor the wild world beyond the city walls. For the ancient Greeks, if dogs barked into the darkness, it was possible that Hecate and her hounds were passing through.

She is not alone in this. Cerberus stood guard at the gates of the Greek underworld, ensuring the dead stayed dead and the living stayed living. Anubis, the jackal-headed Egyptian god, escorted souls through the Duat — the shadowy passage between life and afterlife. Across the ocean, the Aztec xoloitzcuintli guided the deceased through the underworld so they would not have to make the crossing alone. Something in the dog made culture after culture reach for the same image, independently, across oceans and centuries.

We modern folk may not identify completely with these stories, but we sense a dog's role in an even more important threshold — the indescribable space between civilization and wilderness. A dog is happy to roll in the mud, and seems part of the wilder world around us, while also donning a jacket and hanging out on the couch. When I stare into my dog's eyes, I wonder how we got here. How is it that this canid sits on my lap and eats my food? He is not a human, and not a wolf. He is his own liminal being, aware of things I'll never know. A creature of the between spaces.

And he is right at home rolling in the mud of spring.