I never pretend to truly know what a dog is thinking, their minds are alien from ours and they do not have our words. I walked a long time through the cemetery this morning, it was hot and humid.

Red has an inexhaustible supply of energy, as most border collies do, he almost never lies down. I stopped to drink some water and take a breath, I had just been up a long hill and I saw Red move among the markers and then lie down. I came closer and saw that the tombstone had a lamb on it, it was the marker of a seven-year-old girl named Theresa, she died in 1911 and I can only imagine that this was her lamb.

He was comfortable at this gravestone, it is the only one he has ever stopped to lie down next to.

I don’t know why Red chose this marker. Did he feel a connection to Theresa and her lamb? Was he simply tired and wanted to rest? Did he recognize the lamb as a sheep? I don’t know and will never know, but I was touched by it and felt the mystery and magic of animals, the part of them that we can never truly know or grasp.