When Daughter Number Four was about five years old, she wrote a little think piece on whether or not horses can count. She looked into the matter, consulting various sources she felt were in a position to know, as they had or had had, regular contact with horses. At length, she decided to keep her mind open but endorse our friend Judy’s stand on the matter. To wit, Judy’d never known a horse who could.
Dogs are another matter. Dogs can definitely count. Maybe not to the higher numbers, but certainly to two. Our dog is living proof. He’s in the kitchen at this moment, crunching treats. Two of them. It’s raining today, and the going rate of payoffs is two treats per soaking. Rascal’s pretty laid back about the weather at going-for-a-walk time, but he loves rain at coming-back-home time. And he doesn’t turn off his expectant face until the second treat appears.
Double treats also bring out his inner Good Boy. After Rascal gets his toweling down on rainy days—a treatment in which he revels—he becomes very helpful. He hustles off to stand in the kitchen, where treats are kept, in case I need reminding. If I fail to report to the kitchen fast enough—and only the Flash could get there that fast—Rascal pads down the hallway to show me the way. Barring fast enough response to that prompt—still not the Flash—the dog comes all the way back to me, to offer his services as guide. So, not only can he count, he’s an altruist at heart.
Folks with more than one dog will testify that there’s a corollary to the dogs-can-count theorem, which is that dogs can also count to more-than-me, as in, “Hey! You gave Spot one more treat than you gave me!” Perhaps other animals can do this as well.
Today’s rain is bringing down lots of the trees’ autumn splendor. Which has been fine, but not as fine as usual. Summer finished with an extended period of no rain, and a goodly proportion of leaves just faded to yellow and dropped off. Locust trees aren’t usually stars of the fall color competition. They have tiny leaves that usually fall off quickly. This year, some of the locusts were magnificent. Several along Platt Road, for instance, turned their yellowest yellow and hung onto their leaves for weeks.
This was happening while, all around the area, other kinds of trees were saying, “This is all we got.” This led to oaks being other unlikely stars. Oaks are conservatives among trees. They like to hold onto most of their leaves, which turn an unremarkable brown, until spring. This year, oaks have a brownish-gold metallic gleam. They look bronzed and heroic.
We have back-yard maples that turn yellow in the autumn, and they’re doing it now. In years past, the golden light they bring to the back of the house has been so bright that I reach into empty rooms to turn off lights I think have been left on. Lights that weren’t on in the first place: it was all maple glow.
I haven’t been reaching for phantom lights this year. Enough maple leaves fell early this time around that the red of all the euonymus tempers the glow, and where we notice it is different. It makes the hardwood floors like fantastically rich.
The wind has been blowing the last few days, scattering dry leaves and carrying them in air currents. Sometimes the motion is lateral or even upward, giving rise to the illusion, in our back yard, of great yellow butterflies flitting by, late for migration.
Watching the leaves skitter always brings to mind Clement Moore’s thoughts on “dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, when they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky.” This has been happening since I was little and we lived in a house with a courtyard, where indeed the leaves would swirl and whirl and then fly up the side of the house. Do I then think of the reindeer about which Moore was writing? Nope, but the man was a genius about leaves.
Today’s rain, and more to come, weighs down the leaves, spreading their colors over more of the landscape, which gives rainy autumn weather a self-brightening aspect not found in other rain. And the leaves are gorgeous on their way down and for a while after they’ve fallen.
On the other hand, Dave Rexroth, chief meteorologist for WXYZ News, warns us that the rain may be coming to an end. He’s been bandying around the s-word we’re not ready to hear. Snow.
7 November 2025
Well written, as always, my sister.