I noticed this cairn at the dog park today…
I don’t know who left it. Or how many people added to it, or why it’s there, or in fact, anything about it at all.
But when I saw it, I remembered similar cairns I saw when touring Norway. One fjord guide, as an offhand aside, mentioned people stack them up in memory of people who couldn’t make it.
Obviously, I assumed dead people. Though I suppose they might also have been too ill to travel, or just too busy. (I added a stone for my ex-father in law).
But in this circumstance, given this context; I was thinking about dead dogs.
Especially given cairn building is associated with graves in many cultures.
We used to take Jack and Lily to this particular dog park. Neither DB, nor I, were particularly keen to revisit a place with memories of those particular dogs.
When we take Clever Girl out, we generally go to Lilydale Lake. Where she can play in the creek, and run amok with other dogs in the adjacent grassland.
And when she’s more or less biddable, we can walk around the lake.
So why is this cairn here at this dog park?
Is it (as DB suggests), just a random childish installation?
Or was the first stone laid in memory of a particular dog? The second for someone else’s dog, and the third for yet another?
Chances are I will never know.
But I can choose to remember the other dogs loved it there, while I continue to take Clever Girl to the lake insead.
Though Clever Girl loves this park too, because she had endless patience when it comes to swimming out to retrieve a thrown stick.
I might change my mind, and add another stone to this cairn next time I visit.