Understandable to a degree, since it's human nature to value the predictable familiar, people seem inclined to perpetuate what they're comfortable with, like certain routines, offering a type of certainty in life's small expectations. With dog companionship and the emotional attachments related to that state of cross-species relations, people similarly tend to be faithful to the breed they've become attached to.

We've done that, and we've seen that same type of choice in so many other people. Take Kyra, for example, a very small miniature schnauzer whom we would often come across over the years, during our daily rambles in the woods. She really was a small fuzzball of energy. She loved her tennis ball and usually her people brought it along for her during their trail walks. Which weren't very extensive, just a short jaunt beyond the street they lived on adjacent the ravine. It wasn't the ravine itself they would access, but the more limiting forested heights.

They would let Kyra's ball roll down a modest hillside and Kyra would delightedly race speedily after it, her little legs scattering in all directions until she reached the ball and brought it triumphantly back up to the path. You could tell Kyra was around even if you hadn't yet seen her; she had a high pitched little exclamatory voice that reflected her excitement. And she became excited when she came across people, wanting to be noticed and never was she disappointed.

Now there's Tim-bits, another very small Schnauzer, a boy this time, a trifle larger and even fluffier than Kyra. He, like her, is a veritable fury of constant movement and excited discoveries. When he sees Jackie and Jillie he speeds directly toward them, bounces off them, veers about inviting them to join him in his exuberant dashes. And trailing a long, orange rope. I mean long, really long. This is his human companions' idea of giving him his own space, yet maintaining a vigil lest he happen to wander too far. It's a puzzling decision to make but they reason he's only 7 months old and needs protection.

It's a potentially dangerous thing to do since if he gets out of their sight and the rope winds around a tree trunk or anything similar he could conceivably choke. A harness, instead of attaching the rope to his collar, might help. As it is, the rope gets wound around anyone he's interested in while he races around and around in his delight to see them. Other dogs get captured by the rope and constantly Tim-bits and anyone or anything else caught in the orbit of his 'net' has to be rescued from the winding mess he's made of the rope. It is much, much longer than any retractable leash.

In any event, yesterday was another good day to be out; damp but mild at two degrees above freezing with no particular wind of any note. In the forest it's cooler than it is out on the street; the accumulated snowpack is deeper and in the depths of the ravine the atmosphere tends to be cooler. On Sundays more people tend to be out and about than on weekdays, for obvious reasons. And everyone is there for their own purposes, mostly for the visual beauty and the comfort felt by those who appreciate nature, to be in that setting landscaped by the ultimate authority.