Sometimes, when we’re out on a walk, my dog just sort of freaks-out. She’ll get all anxious and shivery, and starts pulling on the lead, desperate to cross the road and head home. It’s always a mystery to me, and I find it spooky. Animals, of course, can see, smell and hear things that we cannot. Attuned to a reality that’s often invisible to us, they have a kind of precognition—allowing me to think they could detect the massive and ancient tree that’s about to fall, the madness in the belly of a killer who approaches from up the street or the sound of a distant plane as it begins it’s tragic fall from the sky…
Yesterday, at the corner of Bloor and Brunswick, Heidi had one of these episodes. This is very familiar ground for the dog, as two or three times a week, I get take-out from Thai Basil, and while waiting for it, often sit on the side steps of the Brunswick Hotel. Heidi always sits there happily, thinking about treats, but yesterday, she was whimpering, shaking and pulling on the leash.
I put up with it for a few minutes, then picked-up my food and took the dog home. Heidi hustled all the way back, as if she’d left a tap running. Once we were home, everything was fine.
Later that night, a 23 year-old man was shot to death in the alley right behind the Brunswick, about ten yards from where were sitting. I have little doubt that with the garbage strike and all the rain, that my dog was merely smelling a bunch of nearby (yet invisible) rats that had emerged from the sewers and taken up residence in the adjacent alley, but still, still a part of me wonders if some part of her animal core could feel the energy of gathering violence behind us, and unable to name it, sought escape.