Low Country Dog

Kipper took his first family vacation this summer. He rode down with us in the Tahoe to the island of Hilton Head in southeast South Carolina. The coastal land and its islands in this part of the state are known as the Low Country. Kipper didn’t seem to mind the 14 plus hour drive, and even seemed to bask in this extended opportunity to sleep on or between the backseat travelers. In fact, there was nary a complaint of boredom, hunger, nor confinement to a backseat shared with 3 humans.

On his first morning on the island, he was taken by his father and paternal grandmother (in the human sense) to the somewhat remote Tower Beach for his first ocean experience. Drawn to the surf, he quickly learned to negotiate the lapping waves as they danced in their rising and falling motion on the hardened sand. Emboldened by his success in tracking this moving, strangely salted water, he let the glorious waves of the Atlantic wet his virgin, canine paws. Awed by the magnificence of the moment, he was strangely silent.

Softened by the heavy, salted air that accompanies life on an island, Kipper quickly took to his new environment. Walking among the fallen needles of the pines that populate the island, he found plenty to sniff on his leashed walks. As a matter of fact, he greatly enjoyed his mid-evening walks along the ponds of the fairway behind the villa, which, in all honesty, were actually thinly veiled gator searches. One evening, we came upon a goodly sized fellow patiently and silently waiting, presumably, for an ill-timed passing of a creature that would satisfy his hunger until the next morning’s breakfast. If Kipper had in any way sensed the alligator at water’s edge, I’m confident he would have barked and postured (at a safe distance, of course) with the bravery of other notable South Carolinian dogs such as The Great Dog Chippy*, until the shrill and piercing barks sent the large reptile back into the peaceful, murky, and soundproof waters of the briny pond. If Kipper was ever ambushed by such an alligator, I’m quite certain he’d make an adequate meal, if not something of a delicacy, being Yankee blood and all.

Sometime during the week, during one of our morning beach walks, which quickly became an expectation, I decided to dub Kipper a Low Country Dog. Now such a title is only honorary, of course. A week on Hilton Head during the year does not entitle any dog to such a permanent moniker. Even a beach fling with a southern belle sheltie, Kaylie, if we must kiss and tell, can’t earn a pooch such prominence. But back in Indiana, walking through the neighborhood, I noticed Kipper sniffing the air, as if something wasn’t quite right. The air was heavy, but, and this is my own deduction, the evaporated salt from the ocean wasn’t on the breeze. The only thing missing from this article is a picture of Kipper next to a Palmetto tree, which I’m sure he would have gladly marked as his own. You know, being a Low Country Dog and all.

*The Great Dog Chippy is the main character’s childhood dog from Pat Conroy’s novel, Beach Music. Jack McCall tells his daughter, Leah, fantastic and greatly exaggerated stories about the heroic feats of his childhood pooch.