A Fine and Dandy Morning

A Fine and Dandy Morning

By Chris Peter

One morning last fall, my alarm went off at 4:30 AM to wake me for my daily run around the neighborhood, part of training for the marathon that I run every year. I rolled out of bed reluctantly, a bit disoriented as I regained consciousness, and pulled on my running clothes. On my way out the door I slipped on my reflective vest and headlamp, attempting to creep past our yellow lab, Dandy, who always wants to join me but tends to run too fast for me in her excitement.

This particular morning she was more persistent than ever for some reason, her entire back half undulating wildly as she wagged her tail. She stretched her front paws out in front of her and bowed to me, pleading with her amber eyes and whining with such intensity I could not deny her. She was the most vocal dog I had ever met, never mind owned.

“Ok, Dee Dee. You can come this morning. Find your leash, find your leash…” I whispered. She leapt up, ran to the mudroom, snatched the lead from it’s hook and delivered it to me proudly, anxiously. I connected it to her collar and we started out through the garage as usual.

Up the steep hill of Mariomi Road and out into the darkness we went, me walking at first to warm up my tired muscles, Dandy pulling as usual. A full moon illuminated our path and revealed slow moving clouds in the otherwise clear sky above. I broke into a light jog as we crested the hill, Dandy still keeping the leash taught as a fishing line with a Striped Bass at the end of it. Most days my route would take us to the right down Thayer Pond Road and across the border into Wilton, but today Dandy insisted on continuing straight up Cheese Spring Road. I indulged her instinct in the interest of keeping my shoulder in it’s socket. A chilly breeze swept through my bones as we continued around the bend, accentuated by my fear of the paper boy speeding in the opposite direction and mowing us down.

Dandy plowed on, picking up speed and looking back at me every so often, giving the sense that she was on a mission. Hardly unusual for a dog bred to hunt as she has been. The faint smell of woodsmoke became stronger as we headed North, and the feeling of being watched came over me. This was easy to dismiss as I often sensed this while running this road in the dark and nothing had ever come of it. Probably whatever animal Dandy was smelling keeping an eye on us both, I thought as I peered into the woods just out of the radius of my headlamp.

Leaves swirled across the road and across the beam of light from my headlamp. We cantered across well- manicured lawns and hopped over Belgian blocks marking the borders of driveways. A sprinkler came on suddenly, startling me back towards the center of the empty, desolate road. No streetlamps this far from town; the moonlight cast occasional shadows from the canopy of newly bare branches overhead. Our pace, determined entirely by Dandy, quickened again. I wound her leash around my wrist tightly and fumbled with the zipper on my jacket. Faint silhouettes of Pumpkins, ghouls and goblins framed dimly lit porches on either side of us.

Another puff of wind came up and rustled the leaves which had yet to fall from the trees. A whisper came from just behind me, to my right: “Bitte. Weiter suchen.” The hair on the back of my neck stood up and I wheeled around to find it’s source. Growing up with German grandparents helped me to recognize the language but not it’s meaning. Seeing there was no one behind me, I dismissed this as the imagination of my sleep-deprived brain. The dog pulled me along hurriedly, and I cursed her, imploring her to mellow out while assuring myself nothing was unusual.

I picked up the pace nonetheless thinking some interval training might be a good excuse to sprint from the imaginary spirit prodding me along. It came again: “Bitte. Bitte. Suchen. Der hund. Folge dem Hund!” it insisted. Ok, I thought. This is a joke. I knew the word Hund meant Dog. Something from the deepest recesses of my subconscious was coming to the forefront, that’s all. Still dreaming a bit. Dandy looked back with me and quickened her pace. The smell of smoke intensified and it seemed to surround me like a fog. “Bitte! Bitte! The voice pleaded. “Eile! Eile!” Another word I knew from my grandmother: Hurry.

We sprinted together down the straightaway towards Benedict Hill, my lungs and hip flexors stretched to capacity as the voice continued: “Bitte! Bitte! Eile!”

Suddenly, Dandy changed direction and dragged me into the woods. The voice calmed. “Danke. Danke. So Leid. So Leid.” The dog looked to the trees and back to me rapidly, whining desperately, as though she had flushed a bird, wondering why I would not shoot. I looked up, the smell of smoke now so thick it was though we were standing by a bon fire but the air remained crystal clear. A big puff of wind blew through my vest and the treetops swayed, blurring the basketball sized moon. Dandy looked to me, and again to the treetops. Another gust shook the upper branches violently, but a low hanging branch stayed perfectly still. Dandy noticed this too. I realized this is what she was looking at with such determination.

She took off again, dragging me from the fringe of the woods, across my neighbor’s lawn and back into the woods on the other side. She looked back at me as we ran, towards what I had no idea. I was now the one on a leash, willingly so. About twenty yards in, she stopped hard. Looking at me, she pawed nervously at the thick carpet of leaves covering the ground. I pulled my headlamp off to use as a regular flashlight and set it’s brightness to the max.

I began to help her as she dug and the outline of a stone structure emerged: the foundation from a small building that must have crumbled long ago. Why was she attracted to this place? Why so insistent? Frustrated and realizing I was going to miss my train, I yanked Dandy’s lead and sprinted home to shower and get ready for the commute to New York.

Once on board Metro North, still bothered by the events of the morning, did a little googling and came across the following, from the New Canaan Advertiser: https://www.ncadvertiser.com/news/article/Arson-suicide-and-intelligent-canines-2335008.php

“New Canaan is not really known for murders and horror stories. But that doesn't mean they do not exist.

On Nov. 15, 1898, there was a terrible fire at a house on Cheese Spring Road. All the town's people arrived to help but the house and anyone in it was beyond saving. The house belonged to Susan Anderson….

she was murdered on that fateful November day in 1898. After the fire burned the house down, New Canaanites were terrified to find a man hanging from an apple tree on the property, according to a 2008 article in New Canaan, Darien and Rowayton Magazine by Beth Longware Duff. The man turned out to be an employee of Anderson's named Fred Hahman, a German farm laborer according to the New York Times. When searching his pockets, the towns people found a suicide note…"She is 17 days dead, seek and you will find," the note said in German…Investigators ultimately found her remains in the most unlikely manner -- with the help of Anderson's dog according, to a book titled "Our Devoted Friend: The Dog," by Sarah Knowles Bolton.

"When the woman's pet hound, Dandy, was released, he wandered about as though he had lost his best friend. Then he went to a pile of dirt back of the tool-house and began to dig," Bolton wrote. "Men went to the dog's assistance with spades, and soon found the body of the murdered women."

Now I know why MY dog Dandy pulls me so forcefully up Cheese Spring Road! Happy Halloween Everyone!