Squirrels Part I

The park is one of the few places left in society that is open to anyone and free to utilize. Maybe the library too. But you can’t eat in the library. By contrast the park not only allows you to eat, but has vendors dotted in the corners. Scented smoke radiating from a pummeled pop-up canopy tent. Music struggling out a portable bluetooth speaker. Can’t get away with any of that in the library. The park also has squirrels. 

These most striking of animals. Squirrels are either busy or fearful. You’ve never seen a squirrel relaxing. You’ve seen pictures of it on the internet, because everything is on the internet, but you’ve never seen it in real time. The squirrel is either focussed on its destination or frozen in fear by something it senses in the vicinity. The only time you’ll see a squirrel having fun is when there are dogs nearby.

Dogs, the most beloved of human companions. Number one ahead of the number two rank being actual human companions. But squirrels are permitted a great joy in dogs that humans are not allowed, at least in any decent society. Squirrels are authorized to fuck with dogs.

This squirrel park is a dog park. The dog park is also a squirrel park. They are one in the same. It’s not even a dog park. Or a squirrel park for that matter. A dog park is a specific thing. A squirrel park doesn’t exist. Not to my knowledge anyway. If it did I would set up an encampment and live there. But this park, by nature of what is prominently on display during all daylight hours, is both a squirrel park and a dog park.

You may find yourself ambling across the well worn dirt trails that cut across the park. Head down, scanning the terra to avoid the most common landmines of dog poop and hypodermic needles, only to come across what looks to be two opponents squaring up - a confronting battle! The squirrel is frozen. We know that means fear. Where is the threat? A quick survey of the landscape reveals, slightly out of frame, one of the dozen dogs in the vicinity has ignored the projectile lovingly fired by its owner from a ball launcher and has instead caught the squirrel’s scent. This dog is staring at our hero with the cold eyes of intended death. It’s hard to know what made this specific dog pinpoint this specific squirrel out of the hundreds hiding from sight in the close vicinity. That’s the wonder of scent - out of sight is not out of mind.

Looking at the tale of the tape, oddsmakers unfamiliar with this matchup might feel uneasy and fearful for the squirrel’s potential demise. Here we have an animal descended from wolves vs one step up from a rodent. Like a rodent with a sexy tail. Dogs tend to have large mouths full of sharpened teeth with considerable biting force and they slobber at the idea of an unsanctioned meal. The uninformed observer may tense up at the thought of a slaughter taking place, as if they were in a Jeep roaming the great planes of the Serengetti. You’ll be fine, stick with the tour. Do not under any circumstances get out of the vehicle. It is confronting to see an animal kill another animal. To see any kind of mammalian life obliterated in front of your eyes is confronting. Possibly not if you were raised on a farm, or by a veterinary parent, or as one of those strange people who enjoy killing animals for sport. Good news is, there will be no contest today. 

The hapless dog never stood a chance. The squirrel could have remained frozen while the covetous canine charged. Still as a statue, perfectly poised in the face of the behemoth galloping ever closer with cold blooded murder and ravenous feasting on its mind. But you’re only prey if you get caught. Danger was never here. Picture Magnus Carlsson; allowing his clock to run down without making a move on the chessboard. He knows he is so utterly superior to his opponent that time is of little consequence. Our squirrel hero can conduct itself with the same confidence. Waiting, frozen, until the last fraction of a second before deftly bouncing in an opposing direction like lightning. If a dog had ankles, they would have been broken. But a dog doesn’t have ankles, it has hocks. And these hocks would shatter from the change in inertia. This is nature’s version of a 1 on 1 game at the courts in Venice Beach where the crowd let out a collective “OOOOOOOO”. Hands over mouths, shoulder slaps. Our hero’s deft step utterly embarrassed the charging aggressor. The pacifists in the crowd breathe a sigh of relief. An expeditious dart around on the flat grass, and then take your pick out of one of the many trees available to immediately ascend. The squirrel is safe. We can assume it had some fun. The dog might be dispirited. At least it got some exercise. Which is the point after all.

I don’t know how anyone gets anything done when there are squirrels at the park.