Thursday, February 4, 2010

KISSING A MOOSE

Once again, it was the email inbox which provided the day's oddity.

Sudbury, Ontario man on the snowy back deck, mush to mush with a big cow moose.

Only in Canada, eh?

This put me in mind of the many stories of interspecies friendship that I've seen lately. Vagrant hounds and lonely orangutans; lions and tigers and bears (oh, my!) cohabiting in a southern U.S. zoo, and so on. My favourite personal experience of this was one summer evening when we were out walking the bounds of our little northern village with our German Shepherd, Mishi.. The pink sky cast a glow over everything. It was like wearing rose-coloured glasses. The weathered fence posts, the daisies in the fields, even the page wire was gilded with fiery pink. As we walked past a field of young cattle, one curious little heifer put her wet nose through the fence and stretched out towards the dog. Mishi did the same. In the gilded light, the two noses touched. Then the dog put out her tongue and licked the glistening nose of the calf. The calf, surprised,started a little, but held her ground. We could hardly believe our eyes when that big rough cow tongue slurped the black wet nose of the dog. It was a magical moment.

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