The Call of the Wild

We lost our wee dog Jack recently. It was a wet miserable Friday evening, Jon and I had retired to bed and we let Jack out to have a pee as we had done every other night for 12 years. The weather was ghastly. Rain and hail which Jack hated. Usually when it was raining even a little bit, he would reluctantly venture outside, often with coaxing,  have the quickest pee he could and run back to the safety of the warm dry house. This night however, he didn't. Alarm bells were ringing in my heart when he didn't return to the door. We both got up and dressed, searched the property, desperately calling his name in the hope he would appear out of the darkness but he didn't. Jon got in the car and drove along the road on the northern border then out on the main highway. We live on 10 acres and the western boundary runs alongside a busy main highway. To our knowledge Jack had never ventured out there at all. ​
He returned a short time later looking ashen and delivered me the news that he found Jack on the side of the highway. He was dead and as you can imagine we were devastated. What drove him to do two things that he never done before?
A colleague of mine told me that his daughters dog had uncharacteristically gone missing for a while and I found myself saying that he must have been hearing the call of the wild. Perhaps Jack was doing the same.
We domesticate our animals and believe that we have them under our control but deep down they are still their wild ancestors, roaming the plains and acting upon their natural instincts of survival, adventure and their need to do it their way. 
Humans are no different. We hear the call of the wild too, acting out of character, doing things we don't usually do, being daring and out there.
There is always adventure mixed with risk and exhilaration, on our walk on the wild side. Sometimes it takes us home to spirit, other times it brings us closer to ourselves. 
RIP little buddy. Whatever you were doing out there, I bet you were having fun.

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