With some dogs, a chunk of hot dog attracts their attention, but if you want to get those neurons sparking in Loki's brain, the best thing is to hold a tennis ball in your hand and wave it around.
In his mind, this is a point of maximum danger. His great anxiety is the tennis ball could fly off in any direction. and if he doesn't see the trajectory, then all is lost, not just the tennis ball. In a weird feat of physics, an uncontrolled tennis ball actually shrinks his universe to a speck of total concentration somewhat akin to a black hole. No other thoughts escape the gravity of the situation: GET THAT TENNIS BALL!
This is pretty much why you never play fetch with a Border Collie in the street. We live at the end of a cul de sac and every once in while, I do toss a ball to him. But that came to an end one day when a lead foot driver came storming up the street at 30 miles an hour while Loki was sprinting after the bouncing ball at 30 miles an hour. I reacted calmly by shouting, "Stop! Stop!" while waving my arms, jumping around and generally making an ass of myself. To cut to the chase, so to speak, car and dog didn't collide at 60 miles an hour, but it was a frosty hour in the house that followed after my wife pulled into the driveway.
One of the better places to let Loki lose his mind completely in pursuit of little green balls is the Cabin John Creek trails. From start to finish, these trails, which follow Cabin John Creek, wend for 8.8 miles. The good news is that given the urban/suburban nature of the down county area, the trail is cut into five distinct sections.
The first section, which starts at MacArthur Boulevard, is the cardio bit and most of the trail is either up steep hills or down. If you only have time to do 1.2 miles out and then back, this is the one for you. From Loki's point of view, hills are what he was born to climb. The English-Scottish border where they come from is nothing but uphill and down. But best of all are the swimming areas where he can cool off.
A welcome cool down when Washington's finest weather comes in August with 100 degree days accompanied by 100% humidity. But don't worry, it's a wet heat.Of course, Loki knows the secret to rounding up escaping tennis balls is prior positioning which is why he sprints ahead to every cut through on the creek embankment and waits. Experience has taught him that tennis balls are most likely to go flying when he was easy access to the creek. I'm not sure he's made the connection that this is when I chuck them, but in a dog's world, a lot can be left to mystery.
But it's no mystery to Loki when he starts overheating and even if I'm just holding the tennis ball, he will lie in the creek to cool down. This suits me fine because even when he does this, his Obsessive Compulsive disorder is kicking in. There's not a chance in the world he is going anywhere except after the tennis ball.
As we climbed one of the hills, Loki and I came face-to-face with another pair of Border Collies but these had weird antenna sticking up from their backs. My first thought was along the lines of Charleston Heston's final lines in original film Planet of Apes, "My God, you did it. You fools did it." Yep, I figured some mad scientist, no doubt an ex-Nazi, somewhere had finally invented the Cyborg Dog. The reality turned out to be a bit more prosaic and ironic. The pair of antennasized Borders, known at Thunder and Lightning, are actually fitted out with GPS broadcasting packs. The owners explained they turned to this after a particularly fierce thunderstorm last year panicked Lightning who flew out of the house at the speed of, well, yes, lightning and was lost for three days.
Amid general consternation and phone calls to various owners of tracking dogs whose specialty is tracking lost dogs, the decision was made that these two pooches won't leave home without a homing beacon capable of broadcasting its signal to a satellite in geosynchronous orbit at 22,000 miles up. So there you have it, a dog named lightning panicked by lightning and dogs that track dogs. And we scoff at our own dogs when we say they are overly concerned with tennis balls. That's nothing compared to a dog owner's phobias and compulsions.
The trail went downhill, literally and figuratively in terms of excitement, from this and a few steps beyond the pair of Cyborg pooches, we were back down on the banks of the creek amid a bamboo thicket. One of the blessings of the mid-Atlantic is that we have the greatest diversity of plants of anywhere in the country. One of the curses is that every invasive species on the planet thrives here.
Little Cambodia
This bamboo thicket, which chokes out our native hardwood trees, is one of the few of its kind along Cabin John Creek. Too bad it is here to stay and even the periodic floods during hurricane season don't uproot it. But grand ecologic thoughts don't concern Loki. What is sees is a straight shot, muddy trail which means he drops the tennis ball somewhere relatively close to me and waits. I chuck the ball down the trail and I swear he puts an extra effort into skidding through the mud when he puts the brakes on to grab the ball.You can bet that next throw is going into creek where he can wash some of that mug off again.
Practical information: Driving down Wilson Lane towards the river, turn right on MacArthur Boulevard and cross the one-lane bridge. Take your immediate right after the bridge and park next to the children's playground. At the back of the playground is the entrance to the trail. Length is 1.2 miles and ends on Seven Locks Road. Trail is very hilly. Busy times are any times other than 9-5 during weekdays. The trail is too rough for most mountain bikers.
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