Dumpster Diving Dog

^ Look at my delightfully well-behaved dog.

On our daily walk, she marches along through the sidewalks and lanes in back of the local high school, head down, nose ever alert, a well-bred and every so mannerly hunting dog to her very core.

^ Now our journey takes us alongside of the main campus. Notice the large planting beds filled with rangy green juniper bushes, prized for their year-round color and sturdy disposition.

The planters are also apparently valued by students as a handy place to toss their uneaten food and associated litter.

Now the average passerby would have no idea of the bagels, chicken patties, granola bars, and sandwiches that lie beneath these stately shrubs. 

But thanks to her sniffing super powers, Gracie does.

^ In an instant, she dashes across the courtyard, leaps up on the wide ledge and into the planting bed proper. She scouts around and through the branches until she zeros in on her first find.

^ And then she dives deep, until her head, neck, legs, and sometimes her belly, disappear into the shrubbery. She snuffles around until she finds what she's looking for, then comes up for air, chomping with wild relish on whatever disgusting food garbage she's found this time. 

^ Thrilled by her savory scores, she plunges again and again, headfirst into the prickly deep, until I come and haul her out. As much as I voice my displeasure at this activity, she doesn't care. Always entirely well chuffed with herself, Gracie resurfaces with a smile.

And a coat full of dried juniper twigs. Which are covered with sharp, needle-like prickers that stick deep into the shaggy fur of her ears, her legs, her chest, her belly. And can only be removed by snipping them out with a pair of scissors and the utmost care.

A process that can easily take as long as thirty minutes, not a single second of which does Gracie enjoy.

^ But when we are back home, and my girl has been properly fed and thoroughly brushed out, she is once again the very picture of well-mannered behavior. 

You would never guess by looking at her that Gracie is a dumpster diving dog.