Porcupine
It is that time of year when daylight is being squeezed at both ends in a hurry. In another week, we will revert to standard time by returning an hour of sunlight from the end of the day to the start. For now, we are up before dawn.
This past Tuesday we were up especially early. Both of us had early morning meetings, Marcia’s in Boston. You would not have called the time pre-dawn, wherein the color of the air is faintly gray. It was black outside. It was very much nighttime. That was our first mistake—everyone who works nights was still working, doing their thing, as budgeted.
Nine-month-old Huckleberry, our puppy, was going with the flow, unperturbed at being dragged from bed for breakfast at five-thirty and thus out the door for his morning constitutionals in the pitch darkness. It was unusual for that portion of his daily routine, but what did he know? I’m just a Rat Terrier/Labrador mix. I wouldn’t think there was much to do at this time of day, but someone must have a plan.
I had switched on the outdoor lights. That may have been the second mistake. The intention was to scatter any animal that might have been foraging in the yard, but porcupines do not scatter. At best they amble quickly, which is no match for a dog designed for agility and coiled to spring at a moment’s notice.
Exposed, the porcupine had ambled to hide underneath a thicket of rhododendrons. The movement was enough to catch Huckleberry’s attention and, to be clear, that was the porcupine’s mistake. We might all have done better if the porcupine had remained still, in the shadows. Huck is not a big fan of morning. He will commit to the outdoors for most of the day, working the field for chipmunks and squirrels, but, initially, he prefers breakfast, a brief potty break in the yard, and then indoors. Heaven to him at that point is climbing back in bed to wait for the sound of the kettle whistling, signaling coffee time.
Going forward, I want to stress this for any porcupines that may be reading this postcard: Huck does not sniff around first thing in the morning. Remain calm. Stay put.
Such an appeal is too late for what happened Tuesday, of course. The lights came on, the porcupine made a break for it, Huckleberry jet blasted to the scene. When he could not rat terrier his way into the twisted knot of rhodies, he hurtled around the perimeter yelping, barking, jumping madly. What the porcupine made of the commotion, I do not know. My understanding is that coyotes howl and sing after they have made a kill or when they are reunited following a night of independent, stealthy hunting. Huck behaved as if he was going to bring down the animal by screaming at it.
Marcia saw all this come together through the window. I was in the shower barking on my own over the sound of the water and ceiling fan: “What the h- - - is going on? Can we get the dog inside!?”
(I use “we” frequently when I mean “you,” as in you, Marcia. I feel it helps neutralize the presumption of command and preserves the sense of partnership. Typically, Marcia will respond, “We are working on it!” which I know means she is working on it without any help from me. This is an example of having good communication in a relationship.)
Fearing the worst, I was hurrying to wrap up in the shower, cutting short a few steps like drying, which was a third mistake. Nothing slows down the process of changing more than wet arms and legs. Luckily I did not crash to the floor pulling on my right trouser leg which got stuck on a heel. Marcia had grabbed Huckleberry’s harness, leash, training clicker, treats—everything she could get her hands on—and rushed to the scene to try and walk him back from the edge and get him inside.
That was the fourth and final mistake. The porcupine might have remained hunkered under the rhododendrons but for the arrival of human reinforcements. Seeing Marcia, it waited the few instants it took for the circling dog to reach the opposite side from where it hid and headed out for the nearby tree line.
I am reminded of Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf at the moment when the poor duck in her excitement jumps out of the pond and runs. Impulsive bad decision. The wolf closes in and gulps down the panicked bird in an instant. The circumstances were somewhat reversed in this case, although the porcupine probably did not feel that way. It had been anticipating a peaceful end to its night of foraging, thinking about heading home, when it was assaulted.
Porcupines, according to my brother, have only two predators: fishers and humans. Everyone else pays high a price. If a coyote makes the mistake of tucking into a porcupine it will starve, unable to chew. Fortunately for Huckleberry, he has access to twenty-four-hour urgent care.
By the time Marcia had led our bewildered puppy back to the house I had one shoe on and was working on the second. She held him tight around the collar while he fussed and gnarled as if trying to remove peanut butter from the roof of his mouth. It ought to hurt, but Huck was not whimpering. I think he just could not decide what had happened.
I drove him to Concord. They kept him for an hour. We drove back with him sleeping it off on the passenger seat. Three hours later he was looking out the window of the den toward the scene of the crime and I knew what he was thinking: next time will be different.
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