Walking in the town cemetery with Red and Fate, I noticed that Fate was paying close attention to the monuments and markers. Passing a large tree trunk, I was startled to see her jump up on and pose, staring for a long time down the hill at a sea of graves, she seemed to be in deep contemplation, especially for a dog that is eternally busy and moving.

I got the camera up quickly but I needn’t have rushed, she didn’t move for at least a minute – for her, an eternity. I am wary or projecting human junk into the pure consciousness of animals, but since I’ve never seen Fate do anything like this, I have to wonder if she wasn’t touched in some way by the monuments, or if she wasn’t figuring out a way to try and herd them, or if she decided, for just a moment, to be a Monument Dog herself, and recognize the glory of dogs come and gone. Maybe she inhaled the spirit of the cemetery. Fate’s instincts are boundless, I have not yet seen the full extent of them.

If I don’t know what she was doing, I loved the chance to imagine what she was doing. You can take a shot at it yourself.