Follow Your Nose Home | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: Follow Your Nose Home | Previous Challenge Entry
By Kathy Barnes
08/01/10
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Puck, a black and white terrier and beagle mix, had spent the day playing in the yard. This was only the second week that Mom had let them out of the safety of their den. A few yards from the doghouse, he had found and old shoe. Copper and Cindy, Puck’s brother and sister along with him had enjoyed a game of keep away with the shoe. It was an old one with big holes in it and long shoe laces that dangled down from it. Copper had won the game and taken the shoe of under the lilac bush to finish chewing it to pieces.

Cindy and Puck had chased squirrel in and out the rose bushes until it scampered up the massive old oak in the middle of the yard. Mrs. Johnston, their next-door neighbor, was watering her garden and some of the water had run under the fence and made a puddle. Cindy and Puck had enjoyed rolling and tousling in it until they were both black all over. Puck was not sure, if it was because she was cream colored to start with and it took Cindy longer to turn black. However, it might have been because she was tired from chasing the squirrel, so she laid down for a nap in the cool mud. He was still a bundle of energy and wanted to play.

It was then that he had caught the scent of something new. He could follow the path for a few feet then it would break and he pick it up again. Puck did not understand why he keeps losing the trail. He followed the smell along a mulch path next to the irises and over to his owner’s garden. Whatever, it was had stopped at the cabbage and nibbled; then it had gone next to the garlic and onions and eaten the tops down to the ground. Next it had gone in, under and over the watermelon vines. Puck had been entangled in them twice before so he was able to free himself. The trail ended at a hole at the base of the sweet gum tree. There he saw a fuzzy brown animal with a white tail. It hopped when it walked and jumped here and there very quickly. He tried to lick it and make friends, but it ran down the hole and tossed dirt in his eyes. They were watering and he was having trouble seeing clearly.

Just then, he heard his mother’s yowl to come home, but he had been so busy having fun that he had forgotten his way home. He started to wonder what to do, when he remembered his mother’s words, “Your nose will always lead you home.” He sniffed back, past the sweet smell of watermelon. The strong harsh aroma of onions made him want to cry. The stinky odor of the cabbage gave way to the sweet aroma of bark mulch and perfume of the irises. The ground still had the wonderful smell of fresh rain over by the fence. The roses were ahead and to his right. Who could miss the delightful fragrance bouquet, they released? The smell of iliac drifted down wind and he ran full steam, up stream. He whiffed the air and caught a scent of his mother, Ruth, and rawhide. His master had brought him a treat. Mom rubbed her nose against him and asked, “What took you so long? Did you get lost?” He said, “No,” that just as she had said, “his nose knew the way home.” He asked what the fuzzy animal that hopped was and she told him a rabbit. She kissed his forehead, washed the dirt from his face, and told him to eat his treat that he had had enough adventures for the day.

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