Shit expert

When I take my dog Andy for a hike, I’m often thinking about the role he plays in nature ..and I’m usually surprised to find something new. For instance, I already knew that his nature is to hunt small game ..or ‘critters’ ..but, I recently discovered that he has another job ..shit expert. The first sign that there may be critters in the area are their droppings. Andy keeps his nose to the ground so he can detect these. When he finds some, he signals me by sticking his tail out and bending one of his front legs (I still haven’t figured out what I’m supposed to do with this information). What I do find remarkable however is that he doesn’t stop and signal me with just any piece of shit that he finds. Nope. First, it’s gotta be fresh ..and when I say fresh, I mean less than a 15 minutes old. Second, he passes over any droppings left by dogs ..coyotes ..or humans. He only signals me when the droppings were left by a critter ..like a possum, raccoon or rabbit. Today’s offering looked way too big for a raccoon ..but too small for a deer. I told him it might be a bobcat ..and we got the hell outta there. Sure enough, the first person I run into tells me that there’s been a bobcat sighting in the area. It also tells me something about Andy ..his sense of smell has been ‘genetically tuned’ to select only the scent of shit left by the critters he was bred to hunt ..and only if it’s sufficiently ‘ripe’. No one had to teach him that ..it is not an acquired skill .. it’s a gift he was born with.