"If you'll walk a little further"

I was just out with my resident genius, Whit, an English Cocker. We were walking on lead because it's Monday, and with sunrise, time was pressing. In an adjacent field, the herdsman had left his hay tractor in the shade of a stand of maple, casting a paradoxical reflection from its upper frame.

Immediately Whit bounded, bristled, planted his feet squarely in their frosty starting blocks, his nostrils steaming for that leap I've seen this spaniel sentry give our geese, arriving now.

I paused, Whit's alarm shunting tremors through the lead. He barked. I said, Come along, let's walk some more. If you'll walk a little further, you'll see that it's OK. Whit had taught me this, years ago, where parallax or some disturbance in a frame excites confusion, felt as threat.


We did walk on. 
It was OK.
Tell the old. 

Victor Norlander