Opus is following the nonlinear path that Bassets follow when they put their noses to the ground. For him, and his sister Tallulah, this is way better than a walk.

Walks are like stories with a beginning, a middle, and an end. What Bassets fancy is a beginning, an end, and a long series of middles. Unlike bloodhounds, they like the trails that begin and then break off like a book with only the first third between the covers.

Soon they're in the middle of another story. There are details and descriptions in this second story, so Opus and Tallulah double and triple back to the same spot. There they linger, sniffing the ground, the air, catching a hint of some small fragment of fragrance several days old.

Then they pick up the continuation of the first trail at the pace where I’d feel it in my shoulder socket if they were walking on a leash.

I sit down and scribble out a few notes as Opus and Tallulah reach into their pockets and take out their notepads, documenting their field work. Then Tallulah stares up at me.

“Dad, could you get up and walk a bit,” she asks.

We walk. I add some trails for them to follow. I think of a story while I'm walking, and give off bits and pieces of the scent of the tale. They follow me, then suddenly break off, having found the remaining two-thirds of that book.

They relate the story to me, and it doesn’t sound like much: a golden retriever's account of repeatedly chasing down a tennis ball. Opus and Tallulah, however, can smell the moment of existence, how each rush for the ball felt like a quest for the Holy Grail.